On a sunny Monday morning, after travelling on the Quetta-Chaman road for half an hour, I turned on to a kutcha [dirt] road which led me to the small town of Saranan. This is home to Afghan refugees who reside here in mud houses.

The Saranan refugee camp, which predominantly hosts Pakhtun refugees hailing from Afghanistan, is located in Balochistan’s Pishin district, which borders Afghanistan. It is one of the earliest Afghan refugee camps, which sprang up in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (then the North-West Frontier Province) following the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Since that time four decades ago, many refugees have returned to their country. However, a large number of the Afghan refugees still continue to live in Pakistan’s bordering provinces, including Balochistan.

The Saranan camp hosts over 30,000 Afghan refugees even today. Over the decades, the tents inhabited by the refugees have transformed into mud houses.

But that is not the only change to have taken place.

June 20 marked World Refugee Day. Eos paid a visit to the Saranan Afghan refugee camp in Balochistan to see how things have changed in the four decades since it was established

EDUCATION AMIDST CHAOS

While driving through the twisting kutcha road in Saranan, I am told by my local guide that the refugees have set up schools over the past few decades. These schools are denoted by numbers. For instance, school number 12 is Ghazi Amanullah Khan High School, named after a former Afghan leader of Afghanistan.

At the school, 24-year-old Aziza teaches and heads the girls section of the high school. Dressed in traditional Afghan clothes, Aziza is draped from head to toe in a big black dupatta. Only her eyes are visible, and they are modestly focused on her feet. Aziza hails from a very conservative Afghan family that has been living in Saranan for over two decades. She speaks in Pashto but can speak a little Urdu.

“I studied till 12th grade, after which I became a teacher at the same school,” she tells Eos in a coy tone. “It was a huge task to persuade my parents to allow me to study, as there were hardly any school-going girls in Saranan in the early 2000s.

“It was considered kufr [against religion] on the part of most Afghans to seek education, especially young girls,” she adds. “There were many fatwas against girl’s education. But despite many issues, I did not give up.”

Today, she and her community are reaping the benefits of Aziza’s perseverance.

Aziza is one of the 38 teachers who teach at Ghazi Amanullah Khan High School, which is headed by principal Zahir Pashtoon. Out of these 38 teachers, 19 are female and they collectively teach hundreds of boys and girls who hail from the Saranan refugee camp. It is interesting to note the school is registered in Kabul.

Our interview is briefly interrupted by one of Aziza’s student’s queries. After assisting him, she comes out of the Computer Room to resume her conversation with me in the courtyard, pointing me to Zahir Pashtoon, a man in his late 30s.

“He is my teacher,” she tells me, gesturing toward Zahir. “He convinced my parents. Today, I am a teacher in his school, and all this, I owe to him.

“Unfortunately, there is still no work in my country. The future seems bleak. I hope to return when things get better, to teach Afghans over there too.”

We go back into her class while Zahir follows us inside.

Zahir is a father of five, three of whom are girls. Like other Afghan girls and boys, they are also enrolled in the same school. His wife, who was uneducated at the time of their wedding in 2012, also enrolled in the same school. Today, she is in the 12th grade and will soon graduate.

“I clearly recall holding Aziza’s fingers and guiding her in the school building as a kid,” Zahir tells Eos. “I have truly come to value education, especially seeing how the graduates — both boys and girls — have benefitted from it. This is why I brought in Aziza and others to educate the students. This is especially important, given that Afghanistan has been made bereft of education and peace over several decades.”

Despite his commitment to education, Zahir’s journey has not been easy. He has received several threats, been labelled ‘anti-Afghan’ and accused of perpetuating Western NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisation) propaganda.

“Other than being labelled anti-national, I have received threatening letters that demand I stop educating Afghan kids, particularly Afghan girls from conservative families,” he adds. “But I did not stop. Because only education can pull us out of poverty, war and ignorance.”

In Saranan, most of the Afghan refugees belong to the Sar-e Pol, Faryab and Jowzjan provinces of Afghanistan. Zahir’s parents also hailed from Sar-e Pol and he was born in Saranan.

“Over the decades now, hundreds of students have graduated from my school, which gives me immense pleasure,” he shares. “Education is the medicine Afghans need to progress and see prosperity and peace.

“Growing up, I read the works of Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai’s books in Pashto, which further fueled my passion to assist the education of my people,” he explains.

Aziza remains silent while Zahir talks. Upon being asked to comment, she requests her teacher to leave as she is too shy to speak in front of him. Zahir willfully abides and leaves the class full of girls. He is followed by a queue of students, who leave the class one by one.

“After persuading my parents, other girls from my neighbourhood were inspired to follow suit to seek education at any cost,” she informs me while walking out of the class. “I want to continue to serve my people. Earlier, there were only a few of us. Today, over one and a half decades later, the number has increased by a lot.”

That’s admirable, I tell her. But what do you want to be in the future, I ask her.

“I want to become an afsar [government officer] someday. But I do not know how I can be one as a refugee.”

Aziza may have become educated and is also helping assist her community to also become educated. But she and her fellow refugees face many other bureaucratic hurdles in their everyday life because of their status. While the community has moved from living in tents to living in mud houses, they are still treated as ‘outsiders’ in the country of their birth.

Aziza awaits the day she can fulfil her dream of becoming an afsar.

The writer is a member of staff.
He tweets @Akbar_notezai

Published in Dawn, EOS, July 2nd, 2023