They were an all-female group of singing schoolgirls, putting them at great risk of Taliban reprisal. But volunteers quickly mobilized to get them out.
They were young, educated women and girls who loved to sing – and that made them a target of the Taliban. Here's how they made a harrowing escape.Seated in the back of a vehicle on a dusty highway in eastern Afghanistan, Maryam Masoomi sits quietly next to her mother. Her hair is tucked neatly under her hijab, a mask pulled up over her mouth and nose.With a gun slung across his body, the soldier presses Masoomi’s brother, who is in the passenger seat.
Masoomi was an assistant music director at the renowned Marefat School in Kabul before she was forced to flee. with thousands of views. They also sang and spoke on a school-produced radio show called Radio Marefat. “It was … shocking news for everyone and there was … panic everywhere. And we just got our bags and then just ran away, from work to our home,” she said.
Facing danger because of her education, Tamanna Sarwari, 15, along with her family, made the decision to leave Afghanistan. Mohammad Behroozian, a media and communications consultant based in Chicago, helped plan the students’ escape. Each student would wait for instructions to be sent via text message, deleting it immediately after reading. And then one by one, the families started to leave Kabul.
Nazari with her brother, Hujat, left, and parents, right, at their hotel, preparing to depart Islamabad, Pakistan. Masoomi and her family crossed first. Shortly after, she was joined by many of her students, including Samim, Sarwari and Nazari. The families moved into apartments scattered across the city, and the children were enrolled in different schools across several different neighbourhoods.
He remembers the moment the mayor of Saskatoon and staff at Open Door Society were asked by the federal government if they had the capacity to welcome 200 people from Afghanistan connected to the Marefat School.Sadat was able to call many of the students by their first names when they arrived at the Saskatoon airport, and as he got them settled in hotels over the first couple of weeks.Welcoming them to Saskatoon was bittersweet, he said.
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