With a Look Towards Kabul: An Afghan Woman in Bulgaria

This is one of her earliest memories. She is in Kabul, visiting her uncle's house with her mother, father and sister. At one point shots are heard outside. Everyone is hiding in the basement of the house. They spend the whole night there. When they head home the next morning, they go out into a street littered with corpses. The night before, the Taliban had passed by and shot anyone outside. Then Silsila Mahbub was 6 or 7 years old. Today the young Afghan lives in Bulgaria. She's been seven years here. She came because she was looking for freedom, a better future and because she has relatives here. They help her come legally, with a visa. She quickly learned Bulgarian, enrolled in university, found a job. Today she has her own sewing workshop, with which she wants to give work to other refugee women. Since the Taliban offensive began a few months ago, Silsila has kept an eye on what is happening in her native Afghanistan. She says that in the recent days she has spent all her time clinging to her phone, watching the news and waiting for a call from her relatives. She also talks to other Afghans who live outside the country like her. Together they exchange news, share their fears. Sometimes, more often than not, it happens that they cry together. In her account of what she learned from her loved ones in Afghanistan, it is difficult to say which emotion prevails over others - shock, frustration, anger or pain.

"It's just like before"

"No one believed it would happen. That they would take Kabul," Mahbub said. According to her, Afghans inside and outside the country still cannot believe that the Taliban are coming to power again, that history is repeating itself. Although the Islamist insurgents' rapid offensive has been going on for...