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Kabul, Afghanistan – Samia gathered her seven children, packed a few clothes, and left her home in Tahar in the middle of the night for Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.
All day on Saturday, her family had been hearing that the Taliban was about to occupy the neighboring Kunduz province and would soon begin to march towards Talukan, the capital of Tahar.
By Sunday night, the Taliban had hoisted their black and white flags in the two capitals, but by then Samia was already on the way to Kabul.
On Saturday night, she left with four boys and three girls, and did not arrive in Kabul until after midnight on Monday.
Usually, the journey does not exceed seven or eight hours, but Samia said they had to stop along the way.
“We had to change three cars, and it was harder to find a car willing to take us each time,” she said, sitting under a tree in a temporary camp for internally displaced persons in northern Kabul.
Last week, hundreds of families fled the war and came to Kabul [Tamana Ayazi/Al Jazeera]For months, the Taliban have controlled the road from Kabul to Kunduz. With the acquisition of Takhar, the group’s control of the highway now extends further east to the edge of the province.
“The rocket hit our house”
The pressure of the Taliban for several days not only affected the length of the trip, but also the cost soared.
Under normal circumstances, a seat in a vehicle from Tahar to Kabul will cost 300-600 afghanis (4 to 6 US dollars), but for an adult, it has soared to 1,000 afghanis (12.50 US dollars).
These prices mean that the approximately 200 families who arrived in Kabul were lucky and had the financial means to take the risk and embark on the road to the capital.
Like most families in the camp, Samia came here alone with her children, leaving her husband to take care of their property.
She knows that it is well known that the Taliban will use civilian homes to fire on government targets, and the US and Afghan Air Forces have increased air strikes against the organization.
“Your life is precious, but if you don’t have a home or your belongings, then you have nothing,” she said, sitting on a dusty carpet surrounded by dozens of women and children.
However, on Tuesday morning, Samia received news that if they returned to Tahar, her family would have nowhere to go.
“I called my husband and he fled the battle and a rocket hit our house,” she said, adding that he will be reunited with his family in Kabul on Thursday.
Caught in a crossfire
Samia said many women and children were forced to flee the escalating fighting between the Taliban and government forces.
“The two sides just fired without seeing what they hit. You may be hit by bullets from either side.”
Nevertheless, Samia left most of the anger to the Taliban.
“Takhar used to be safe and we have no worries. We had to leave because they brought the fighting to our community,” she said.
Not far from Samia is Zamina, an agricultural student from Kunduz.
Hearing Samia’s story, Zarmina began to cry. She said that she was only two months away from completing her studies at Kunduz University.
Like Samia, Zarmina’s family had to leave in groups, but her family was especially dangerous because her father served in the Afghan army.
Many men try to stay to protect family and property [Ali M Latifi/Al Jazeera]Zarmina described her fears when her father was forced to flee the fighting from Kunduz to Kabul on a road controlled by the Taliban on Saturday night, despite the danger of the organization stopping his vehicle to interrogate passengers in search of work for the government or a foreign country Power of people.
Zarmina said that when her father and brother left Kunduz, she begged them to take her there, but was told that there was no place and they would come back to take care of the family.
However, in less than two hours, the remaining women and children saw that it was too unsafe and got on another car that night.
“We were scared for my father and brother, but they were lucky. They never stopped even once along the way,” she said, adding that their car stopped several times along the way.
“Our beautiful home is gone”
Samia and Zarmina think they are lucky to find a car to take them to Kabul.
Ghulam Farooq, who fled Kunduz with his brother and nephew, was not so lucky.
He loaded them into his Indian-made small motorized rickshaw (a popular means of transportation in cities outside of Kabul), and then traveled along the dangerous Salang Pass to the capital.
“We had no choice, so I just threw them into the rickshaw and stepped it on the ground.”
Riding in small, poorly insulated vehicles makes them vulnerable to the cold northern air.
Farooq also had to ride his small rickshaw through cars and buses filled with other refugees.
Although they passed several Taliban checkpoints, their biggest concern was gasoline.
Halfway through the Sarang Pass, the rickshaw ran out of fuel. Farooq had to wait on the side of the road because the vehicles were speeding by and the Taliban patrolled these areas.
Finally, he found a young driver who was willing to spend 70 Afghanis (less than $1) to give him a few liters of gasoline.
“If he didn’t give me so much money, I don’t know how we came here,” he said while sitting in a rickshaw parked in the famous Shahr-e-Naw Park in Kabul.
Although the families gathered in this dusty park were lucky to get Kabul, it only solved half of their problems.
Most of the displaced families live in the temporary settlement of Sarai Shamali in Kabul [Ali M Latifi/Al Jazeera]Tamana Ayazi, a film producer and journalist from Balkh province, said that once the family reaches the capital, they have to deal with a series of other issues.
Last week, Ayazi’s family hosted more than a dozen families from Balkh.
“My family is very lucky. My father had the foresight to build a big house in Kabul, and now I know why,” she said after visiting internally displaced persons in Kabul.
This is not the first time Ayazi’s family has had to receive relatives who fled the “invasion” of the Taliban.
When armed groups first occupied Kunduz in 2015, Ayaqi said they had to house her sister’s family. At that time she saw the long-term effects of war and displacement.
“Imagine that you are a child, or even an adult, and you have to hear the sound of rockets and bullets, which will damage your mental health,” said the 27-year-old.
She took her niece as an example, they gave her the nickname Khoshi, happy, because she used to be very cheerful.
Ayazi said that during the first three years of her life, she always smiled when she visited her niece in Kunduz and Mazar-i-Sharif.
But in 2015, when Khoshi and her family arrived in Kabul from Kunduz, everything changed. “She became quiet and gloomy. We never saw her smiling again,” Ayazi said.
Those who have recently fled the battle agree, saying that these scars will last a lifetime.
Ghulam Farooq, a rickshaw driver, recalled his hometown of Kunduz, saying: “Our beautiful home has disappeared. Now it is covered in flames.”
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