Peshawar · 2002
Afghan refugee camp beside the runway
Hospitality, war, and a refugee camp beside a runway — where the Taliban came as guests and a family's protection kept everyone alive.
Afghan refugee camp beside the runway
Afghans are renowned the world over for their hospitality. I saw the real thing in action and can fully attest to that. I was treated like royalty and protected at all times. But now the war in Afghanistan is in full force, the Americans bombing the crap out of The Taliban. Daniel Pearl, a reporter for The New York Times, was dispatched to do a story at the exact same time as when I left Toronto. Both of us are heading for Pakistan.
He, supposedly, would have the resources of his world famous newspaper at his disposal, while I would have only myself. Obviously he’d hire bodyguards to go with him when he would go to interview a connection for an inside story about the Taliban. He ended up getting kidnapped, and being Jewish, having his throat cut open and his head cut off, live on the Internet and TV sets around the world.
Their home was in an Afghan refugee camp. It was built by the Pakistan government for the many millions of Afghans who fled their homeland after the Russians invaded in 1980. And which the Americans were now bombing the living hell out of. This particular refugee camp, where I’ve been taken to, was built right on the edge of one of the major runways of the Peshawar International Airport. Not only airlines like PIA (Pakistan International Airlines), Swissair, Air France etc., but also late at night and very early mornings, military jets burning huge amounts of fuel, would leave behind massive clouds of noxious fumes to hover over the camp for hours.
The family consisted of the General, Khalilullah, his current wife, four of his six kids, plus a couple of relatives whose parents have been killed by bombs and other kinds of destruction. And the odd stray Taliban character who comes by for a safe place to eat and sleep. The first time I came out to see a man dressed in black from the turban on his head all the way down to the ground, I almost had a fit. Jesus Christ I just saw people like that on all the news channels back home. And now one of them is right in front of me.