Khalid Hamid Broker

KABUL, Afghanistan — Najim Rahim says that when he looks around his neighborhood in the northern city of Kunduz now, 'I feel lonely.' His friend Ahmad Ulomi, who worked in the photo shop down the street, gave up his photography studies and left with five family members, striking out across the Iranian desert on the way to Europe. The shop's owner, Khalid Ghaznawi, who was Mr. Ulomi's teacher, decided to follow him with his family of eight, and he put his business up for sale. Mr. Rahim's friend Atiqullah, who ran the local grocery shop, closed it and also left for Iran with his wife. Another neighbor, Feroz Ahmad, dropped out of college and last week called from Turkey to say he was on his way to Europe. All of that happened in the past two weeks as people in Kunduz are rushing to seize what many see as a last chance to make it to Europe, just as others are doing throughout Afghanistan. 'Including my friends, neighbors and people I could say hello to, it'd be more than a hundred who left in the past few weeks,' said Mr. Rahim, a 25-year-old journalist, who with his brother founded the weekly newspaper Roshangran in Kunduz City. He sometimes contributes to outside newspapers, including The New York Times. Kunduz is particularly badly hit because the city has for several months been the center of an intense battle between government forces and Taliban insurgents who hold large parts of the surrounding province. The fighting has subsided in recent weeks, which has only made it easier for people to leave, and many want to go before it resumes. 'Every time I see one of my friends, they say, ‘Hey, we're leaving, why aren't you?' ' Mr. Rahim said. So many have left that their friends and family have started a Facebook page, Kunduz Markaz, documenting their successes and failures, and helping people find those who made it through and those who were sent back. It has thousands of followers. Some of his friends make it only to Iran, where the authorities often beat and sometimes kill Afghan migrants attempting the dangerous land crossing toward Turkey and then Europe. Others have reached Greece and reported that they were heading farther into Europe, hoping to make it to Germany before the borders closed. That was the case with his neighbor Abed Faqiri, a used-car salesman. 'He called and said he was going to try to cross,' Mr. Rahim said. 'We haven't heard yet.' For many, the first stop is Kabul, where they line up for passports or find 'brokers' who sell visas to way points, especially Turkey. The visas appear genuine and the brokers are receiving them from embassy officials with just a one-week turnaround, but the markup is steep. A couple of months ago, Turkish visas bought through Afghan brokers were running at about $3,000; this past week, the asking price was $5,500 to $6,000, according to interviews with several brokers. Mr. Rahim has four friends who were here Wednesday seeking various visas or passports. So many people are applying for new passports that lines begin forming at 2 a.m. outside the passport office in Kabul — the only place they are issued now. The office has 5,000 applicants a day, compared with 1,000 a day last year, according to data from the International Organization for Migration here. While the Afghan government has been largely quiet on the exodus of its citizens — many officials deny it is even occurring — former President Hamid Karzai acknowledged the problem in a recent speech, pleading for young people to remain. 'I urge you all not to leave the country. Stay here and develop your own country,' he said. Mr. Rahim and his brother Mohammad Naim are among those who have heeded that call. His brother actually returned after going to the United States for a month on an academic fellowship, surprising their neighbors. ' ‘Why'd you come back?' people asked him,' Mr. Rahim said. In his own case, Mr. Rahim would almost certainly qualify for a special immigrant visa to the United States, because he worked for a year with American Special Forces teams in Kunduz, helping them set up and operate a radio station, now defunct. Since then he has worked as a journalist in the city. 'My friends are telling me to go, they say, ‘You're crazy not to apply,' but I don't want to,' he said, adding that he felt responsible for an ailing father and other family members whom he supports financially. Mr. Rahim's friend Ahmad Ulomi by Wednesday had been beaten up, tortured and turned back from Iran, expelled to the remote southwestern Afghan desert province of Nimroz. Speaking by telephone, Mr. Ulomi said he was undeterred. He was with a group of friends, 45 young people in all, mostly from Kunduz, and they were going to try next to reach Iran through Pakistan. Their eventual goal was to reach Germany. 'The endless war in the country, the constant shrinkage of job prospects and the disheartening vision of having an unstable country for many more years forced us to decide to leave our homeland behind,' Mr. Ulomi said. Another of Mr. Rahim's friends, Sayed Kareem Hashimi, 23, had better luck, after his father promised a hefty sum to a smuggler in Kunduz, payment only on arrival. After being passed from one smuggler's agent to another, through 15 handlers in all, Mr. Hashimi said, he reached Finland three weeks ago, via Germany, Greece and Turkey. He crossed the Aegean Sea in a boat piloted by an amateur, and it nearly capsized. 'Now I feel so safe and happy,' he said by phone. He was already working on his asylum request. Although it was the first Mr. Rahim and their other friends had heard of it, Mr. Hashimi said that he had received Taliban threats because of his work at a Kunduz television station. He was a cleaner there. Leaving Kunduz is not a new phenomenon; Mr. Rahim knows plenty of people who went last year and the year before. In one case, two brothers drowned trying to reach Greece in 2014. Afghanistan has long been in the top two or three countries in the number of citizens seeking asylum in Europe; this year it is second to Syria, according to recent data from the United Nations' refugee agency. Departures this year, and particularly in recent weeks, appear to have vastly increased. Of the 411,567 arrivals to Europe by sea in the first six months of 2015, including across the Aegean from Turkey, 51 percent of the refugees were Syrians, and 15 percent were Afghans, according to the refugee agency. That does not include what most observers say has been a much busier August and now September. Even Mr. Rahim's resolve to stay in Kunduz has started to waver, as he has watched his neighbors become refugees, only to be replaced in their former homes by other refugees — villagers fleeing fighting in more remote parts of Kunduz Province. 'If my father wasn't sick, I would go tomorrow,' he said. 'And if I could be sure of going safely, maybe I would go anyway. I'm thinking about it.' Source