Returning Afghan Refugees Find Little Hope

Ahmad Rahimi came back from Iran just after the Taliban fled. But Rahimi, a baker, cannot find a job in the country where he was born. Nor can he get his house back from the people who moved in while he was gone.

So Rahimi gave up on the new Afghanistan. He started spending two mornings a week at the Embassy, trying to get a visa so he could leave.

“Even if we live in golden castles in Iran, we do not feel at home,” said Rahimi, 56, waiting outside the embassy on a recent morning. “This is our country. If I had a small home and security, I would be happy here. But I don’t. Of course I’m disappointed.”

Many refugees still are returning to Afghanistan. Since the Taliban fell in late 2001, more than 4.5 million Afghans have returned. But many live in squalid refugee camps or sleep in abandoned buildings. And an increasing number say they want to leave Afghanistan because they just cannot live here anymore. The lines outside the embassies of Iran and Pakistan have been growing longer in recent months.

“Last year I helped about 50 people every day,” said Mohammed Ayob Arafi, who earns money writing visa applications for illiterate Afghans outside the Iranian embassy. “Now, I help 100.”

Police at both embassies say they have noticed an increase. At the embassy of Pakistan, people once showed up at 5 a.m. to get in line. Now they come at 3 a.m.

This fall will mark five years since the world committed to building a new Afghanistan, since the new government told Afghan refugees that it was time to come home.

Now, the new Afghanistan seems to be facing its biggest test. Taliban remnants and other insurgents are mounting their biggest challenge to foreign troops since 2002. The Taliban controls some parts of southern Afghanistan. Poppies and the heroin trade are booming. Corruption in the government is endemic. Jobs are scarce.

Kabul riots on May 29, sparked by a traffic accident involving a U.S. military truck, only highlighted the hopelessness many Afghans feel.

The evidence of people leaving Afghanistan is largely anecdotal. Embassy officials do not ask why Afghans are traveling. Iran’s embassy issues about 600 visas a week, and Pakistan’s hands out between 200 and 250 a day, regardless of how many people show up.

Not everyone is leaving for good; some are going for medical treatment, and some are visiting family. But others are clear about why they will not stay here.

Sayed Reza Yazdanpana, 48, fled Afghanistan for Iran after the Soviets invaded in 1979. He came to Kabul about four months ago to see whether he could move his Tehran clothing factory to Afghanistan, but decided he could not.

“I couldn’t make as much money here,” he said. “I also need power for my machines, for my irons. There’s still no electricity here.”

Mohammed Safar Rahmati, 25, moved his family’s carpet factory from Pakistan to Afghanistan just after the fall of the Taliban. He hired 150 Afghans. But last year, he moved most of his business back to Pakistan because of problems with exporting carpets, banking and dealing with Kabul authorities.

“I’m very optimistic about the future of my country,” he said. “We don’t want to blame our government.... But if the situation gets worse, I’ll take the whole factory to Pakistan.”

Afghan officials say lines at embassies mean nothing. They blame recent troubles on political opponents. And they say Afghans are taking advantage of the same opportunities available to people in other countries.

“It’s a very normal situation that people go from one country to another country to find better opportunities,” said Abdul Jabar Sabit, a top official in the Interior Ministry. “It does not mean the situation is alarming. That’s not the case. I don’t believe people who came back here are going back again.”

The challenges facing Afghanistan would be daunting for any administration. Even before years of war destroyed the country, rural areas were backward, without power or running water. Kabul was never a boomtown. Afghanistan was never rich.

And after the fall of the Taliban, many Afghans were unrealistically hopeful.

Jawed Ludin, President Hamid Karzai’s chief of staff, said life had improved for most Afghans in the last five years. He said he would be shocked if five people out of everyone in a half-mile stretch of downtown Kabul said their lives were worse now than five years ago.

A reporter walked such a distance in the capital and asked people whether their lives were better now or five years ago, under the Taliban. Eighty said their lives were better now. But 49 said they preferred the Taliban. Only nine of those responding were women, two of whom favored the Taliban.

“There was no looting, no theft back then,” said Mohammed Yaqub, 60, who was selling jewelry on the street. “Everything was peaceful. Everything was under the control of the government.”

An ABC News poll of Afghans late last year went better for the current government. In a random sampling of 1,039 Afghans, 77% believed their country was headed in the right direction, and 91% preferred the current government to the Taliban. But 64% said their own households’ financial situation was bad.

Rahimi, waiting in line at the Iranian embassy, said he hoped to come back to Afghanistan someday. He also hoped that his name would be read off so he could leave.

The police officer called name after name, 100 in all. About 200 men huddled around the police, who shoved them back. Rahimi squatted next to a ditch. Every man whose name was called jumped up as if he had won the lottery.

At one point, a police officer walked over with two men whose names were not on the list, who had not waited in line. “Take these guys too,” the officer said. The two men joined the others despite flouting the rules, another example of the petty corruption that angers Afghans.

“What happened to my name?” Rahimi asked after the list was finished. “They didn’t read my name.”

“No one cares about you, if you are here for two months,” another unlucky man, Mohammed Azim, 18, told Rahimi. “If you don’t have money, nothing will work here.”