Afghanistan: Taliban take Kunduz

Enlarge image

Sima Samar lives in Kabul and has been campaigning for women's and human rights in Afghanistan for decades.

She is currently in the USA

Photo: Kayana Szymczak / DER SPIEGEL

When I heard that the Taliban retook Kunduz on August 7th and when I saw the firefights on the videos and the people walking down the streets

ran as fast as they could, I called my friend Nazdana.

She lives in Kunduz.

For security reasons, she doesn't want to make her real name public.

Nazdana has founded a program in which women in Kunduz can learn a trade and earn their own money.

She did a lot for this city.

How are you? I wanted to know from her.

I could also have asked: are you alive?

Nazdana could hardly speak, I think she was in shock.

Then she said in a frightened voice that her sister was heavily pregnant.

"We all don't know where to go, where to run," she said.

There is no longer any means of transport that can take people out of the city.

The city in which she grew up has once again become a death zone.

Nazdana said: Women are running out of their houses with their newborns, barefoot, because the violence was so quick in the city.

Just get away from danger.

On the street corners and behind walls that provide a bit of protection, they stop, gasping for air.

They watch as their loved ones are murdered.

Who else should stop the Taliban?

As I listened to my friend describe the horror, my mind wandered back into the past.

How many times this city has burned!

How many people have already lost their lives here or have been displaced!

The Bundeswehr, which was stationed here from 2003 to 2013, also has dozens of operas to complain about in Kunduz.

And many German soldiers were wounded during their deployment.

Kunduz, this city with almost 375,000 inhabitants, has always been an important center in northern Afghanistan.

Also a transshipment point for smugglers, for example of heroin, in the direction of Central Asia.

Kunduz is an extremely important strategic location for the Taliban.

So many times have they taken the city;

so far Kunduz could always be recaptured.

But this time the Islamist siege could be forever.

Because who is going to stop the Taliban?

Who can stop them?

At a time when the international community is withdrawing from Afghanistan?

Now that the West definitely no longer wants to send signals of interference, or rather of protection?

The Taliban conquer province after province in the north of the country.

How long, we ask, will it be before they stand at the gates of Kabul?

I remember the bitter fighting for Kunduz in 1992. Then the disaster in 2009, when the Taliban hijacked two oil tankers, which were then bombed by the Americans on the orders of a Bundeswehr colonel. The detonation killed more than 100 Afghan children and adults.

Or I think of 2016, when the Taliban took Kunduz as well. I lived in Kabul, but I couldn't sleep because I was worried about colleagues in Kunduz who, like me, worked for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. How can we get our employees and their families out of town? That was all I could think of at the time while the Taliban were murdering in Kunduz, setting people on fire, freeing their followers from prisons. Then, as now, thousands of civilians were displaced. Fortunately, none of our colleagues was ultimately harmed.

In such hours of conquest, women and children are always the first victims.

I can tell you why: a lot of women don't just run for their own lives.

You have small children with you who are slower, who cannot hold out that long.

Often the women have at least one child in their arms while they are fleeing through the city.

Some are pregnant, like my friend Nazdana's sister.

When they run for their lives, they often miscarry.

Triggered by the vibrations while running, the heavy things that they drag along on the run.

Or the fear of death.

They then lose their unborn child.

Many thousands of people from the north fled the siege of the Taliban to Kabul.

They live in windy tents and have bad stories to tell.

The mosques in the city are overcrowded because many refugees have sought refuge there.

In the meantime, my friend Nazdana and her family have also arrived in Kabul.

Afghanistan is on fire, I can't sleep again, even though I happen to be thousands of kilometers away in the United States myself.

The places in Afghanistan that are safe, that people can take refuge in, that are not under attack, are becoming fewer and fewer.

I am very worried.

Editing and translation: Maria Stöhr

This contribution is part of the Global Society project

Expand areaWhat is the Global Society project?

Reporters from

Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe

report under the title “Global Society”

- on injustices in a globalized world, socio-political challenges and sustainable development.

The reports, analyzes, photo series, videos and podcasts appear in the international section of SPIEGEL.

The project is long-term and will be supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) for three years.

A detailed FAQ with questions and answers about the project can be found here.

AreaWhat does the funding look like in concrete terms?

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is supporting the project for three years with a total of around 2.3 million euros.

Are the journalistic content independent of the foundation?

Yes.

The editorial content is created without the influence of the Gates Foundation.

Do other media have similar projects?

Yes.

Big European media like "The Guardian" and "El País" have set up similar sections on their news sites with "Global Development" and "Planeta Futuro" with the support of the Gates Foundation.

Have there already been similar projects at SPIEGEL?

In the past few years, SPIEGEL has already implemented two projects with the European Journalism Center (EJC) and the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: the “Expedition ÜberMorgen” on global sustainability goals and the journalistic refugee project “The New Arrivals” as part of this several award-winning multimedia reports on the topics of migration and flight have been produced.

Where can I find all publications on global society?

The pieces can be found at SPIEGEL on the topic Global Society.