The Endless Wait

Afghan refugees in India fear ending up with nothing

- Ankita Mukhopadhyay

FARIBA Hakimi, 42, escaped from Afghanistan in 2018 with two of her daughters. Her other two daughters were sold to the Taliban by her husband. Hakimi, who now lives in the Bhogal market area of Delhi, is scared for her life after the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in 2021—the Taliban has issued a lifelong death warrant in her name. She used to work as a gym instructor in Delhi but it shut down during the pandemic. It has been a constant struggle since then.

Her story touched my heart and she became the obvious choice for my passion project. In September 2022, I came to India to shoot a documentary on Afghan refugees. I wanted to showcase the impact of displacement and their mental state after the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban.

Since I was based in the US, I connected with representatives of the Afghan colony in Bhogal market in Delhi in the hope of finding Hakimi’s number on the way. I connected with Anisa Parwani, a leader of the Afghan colony, who connected me to Hakimi. Both women met my cinematographer a month before the shoot to confirm that they were on board the project. However, things changed in less than a month.

When I landed in Delhi, I was shocked to learn that my subjects were completely unresponsive. I connected with another Afghan refugee leader from Bhogal, Zarqhina Baqaee, who told me that Hakimi and Parwani were busy protesting with other Afghan refugees outside the UNHCR office. I headed to the location and saw about two dozen Afghan refugee women and men protesting with slogans like, “We want justice, we want resettlement!” I was told by a refugee woman on the site that protests outside the office were quite frequent. She told me that people were exasperated because they had been in India for years and the UNHCR hadn’t processed their claims for resettlement to other countries.