Local Afghan families stuck waiting, worrying about loved ones overseas

TORONTO -

Afghan Canadians in Toronto are waiting, watching and worrying over how the Taliban takeover will play out in their home country.

Working at an Afghan Bakery in Scarborough Suman Hashimi fears the worst about her loved ones back home in Afghanistan. Her grandmother, two brothers, and 8-year- old sister and mother are hiding.

A widow, Hashimi is scared the Taliban could force her mother to remarry and said the ruling militants have started going door-to-door.

“When I talk with my mom I cannot sleep all the night. They are not safe my family.”

“The past few days have been really hard and difficult for us. What we see, what we hear, what they’re doing,” Omar Naden told CTV News Toronto Monday.

“It’s really hurting everyone in Canada and Afghanistan.”

Naden, who runs an Afghan grocery store in Scarborough, said he has uncles and aunts in Kabul. For now, his family members are staying at home.

“Everywhere is closed. There is shooting happening, gun violence, gun sounds and everyone is running around,” he said.

Basir Azizi Bakery is donating 10 per cent of sales until Sept. 16 to help people in Afghanistan and Afghan Supermarket is collecting cash donations.

With the Taliban saying it will be a peaceful transfer of power, Naden is hoping for the best. Still, there is a lot of fear about their ruthless rule two decades ago.

“We feel really sad about the people who live there, my family is there, and also because all the people, especially the youngest,” Laila Masjedi told CTV News Toronto Monday.

“They are grown up, they are happy, their lifestyle was changing for 20 years, but now everything goes back down.”

Masjedi escaped Afghanistan the last time the Taliban was in control, she says.

She said she’s been able to reach relatives on the phone Saturday — her husband’s brother and children — but since then, hasn’t been able to get a hold of them.

Her daughter, 10-year-old Kayenat Yousufi, has always wanted to visit Afghanistan, but now doesn’t know when and if she will be able to go. She worries about the children there and what they’re going through.

“Some kids are still hiding. It’s sad and scary,” she said.

Yousufi has grown up hearing many stories about what life was like in Afghanistan, including how women were not allowed to go to school or go outside without their husband or father and how boys who didn’t have long beards could go to jail.

She admires her parents coming to Canada and everything they’ve accomplished.

“It makes me think about how strong they were to go through such things,” she said.

At a rally in Mississauga on Sunday, hundreds of people gathered to show solidarity, call for peace and denounce the takeover.

There are pleas for the international community and Canada to do more to help Afghanistan after so many people lost their lives, including 158 Canadian soldiers.

“Where is the freedom?” one speaker said at the rally.

“We’re under the authority of Taliban. That was the freedom that Canadians fought for.”