December 3, 2001
Afghan refugees tell sad tales of survival
___By Erich Bridges
___International Mission Board
___WESTERN EUROPE (BP)--Every family has a story.
___For Afghan families crowding the refugee centers served by Southern Baptist mission workers in Europe, it's usually a sad one.
___An ethnic Hazara woman, once a teacher, was hit twice by Taliban bullets as she fled the Afghan capital of Kabul. She survived--barely--in her home village. She couldn't seek medical treatment, since the Taliban prohibited male doctors from seeing or touching a woman's body.
THESE CHILDREN of an ethnic Hazara woman escaped Afghanistan with their mother, but they still do not know the whereabouts of their father.
___Her husband, a well-to-do businessman, was arrested two years ago. The Taliban demanded a high ransom for his freedom. She paid it, but her husband never returned. Instead, another group of Taliban thugs came in the night, demanding to know where he was. When the woman's 12-year-old son insisted his father was still in jail, they shouted, "You lie!" and threatened to cut off his feet.
___They left after terrorizing the family, beating the boy and jabbing a bayonet into his knee. He's been traumatized ever since, the woman says, wiping away tears.
___She paid a smuggler to take her into Pakistan the same week terrorists attacked New York and Washington. Then she flew to a western European country.
___Today she sits in a narrow room in a nondescript, four-story dormitory, waiting for a decision on her asylum application. She asks that her name not be used; the Taliban may be on the run in Afghanistan, but she still fears for the lives of her relatives there.
___Her 9-year-old daughter stays close by her side, gripping her with one arm and a Teddy bear with the other. Her son offers a crooked smile but has a faraway look in his eyes. His knee bears the red scar of the bayonet. Three other children remain in Afghanistan, hiding in the mountains with their grandmother.
___Isthe woman's husband alive or dead? Only the Taliban knows. They took his brother too but eventually freed him--after putting his eyes out.
AN AFGHAN REFUGEE cooks on the floor of her family's temporary quarters in a European country where they have fled.
___"They beat him so badly he couldn't move any part of his body," she says of the brother, adding sadly, "I know nothing of my husband."
___Such stories are as common as despair among the thousands of refugees flocking to European countries for sanctuary.
___They come not only from Afghanistan but many other places people flee because of war, oppression, ethnic turmoil or other miseries--Iraqis, Iranians, Palestinians, Algerians, Kurds, Azerbaijanis, Syrians, Chechens, Gypsies, even Burmese. They arrive by plane, in the backs of trucks, inside crates and rat-infested ship holds.
___"One of the best things we can do is listen to their stories," said an International Mission Board worker who spends most days among the refugees. "They just need someone to listen."
___The 32-year-old single missionary, who cannot be named for security reasons, has heard and seen some painful things in the centers. Like the Iraqi man who bared his chest to display an intricate pattern of circular burn marks from torture. Or the Chechen who stared with dead eyes and said, "Killing people makes you cold."
___But he's also heard Iranian young men eagerly ask, "Can you tell me about Jesus?" and a little Uzbek girl say, "I love God!" after inviting Christ into her heart.
___"It's so open," the Baptist worker said. "You can share the gospel with all these unreached people groups without worrying about getting arrested."
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