Afghan soldiers turn barbers, gym workers in India to escape Taliban: Report

The Taliban had been taking control of province after province in Afghanistan in August. On August 15, the Taliban stormed into Kabul and took power, forcing the US and NATO forces to flee the country.

Zaki Marzai, 29, stands behind a barber's brown chair, snipping a customer's hair at a hair salon in New Delhi.

Three years ago, Marzai was a soldier in the elite special forces of Afghanistan’s army, fighting the Taliban.

The war had started with the United States and NATO forces invading the country in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

According to a report by Al Jazeera, everything changed for Marzai—who had joined the army in 2015 as a sergeant and was on track to become a commissioned officer—on June 20, 2018.

The publication reported that at about 2 am that day, Marzai was stationed outside a camp in the Ghazni province of Afghanistan when a shower of bullets rained over him and his fellow soldiers.

Before Marzai and his comrades could realise what happened, 25 soldiers had died on the spot and six others had been injured. Bullets had pierced through Marzai’s chin and right leg.

According to the publication, Marzai recalls, "The attack was so intense we couldn’t do anything. The bullets were coming from all four sides. We were sitting ducks. The Taliban wiped out the entire camp."

After nearly a year of treatment, his jaw was still deformed, so the Afghan government sent him to India for better care.

In 2019, Marzai arrived at a medical facility in Gurgaon. Later, he was also taken to two other public sector hospitals in Delhi.

The Taliban had been taking control of province after province in Afghanistan in August 2021. On August 15, the Taliban stormed into Kabul and took power, forcing the US and NATO forces to flee the country.

Marzai who had been following the news on his phone says, "I cried all night when the Taliban took over the country. I was heartbroken. I was looking forward to returning to my family and rejoining the army, but now I am stuck in India."

Here in India, the difficulties for Afghan soldiers worsened as the Afghanistan embassy in New Delhi, stopped funding their stay after the government in Kabul changed.

Marzai says, "Since 2021, we have not received any help from the embassy. We have been left on our own, to fend for ourselves."

Marzai managed to enroll in a six-month haircutting course and started working in a salon after all his savings got exhausted.

According to the publication, in November 2023, the Afghan embassy in New Delhi announced that it was shutting down, accusing the Indian government of no longer cooperating with it.

Adding to their problems, the refugee former Afghan soldiers now had nowhere to go for paperwork to authenticate that they were once part of their country’s army.

According to a 2023 report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), India is a home to more than 15,000 Afghan refugees. Nearly 1,000 of those are Afghans who took shelter in India after the Taliban came to power in 2021.

The report states that nearly 1.6 million Afghans have fled the country since 2021, bringing the total number of Afghans in the neighbouring countries to 8.2 million.

Another former Afghan soldier, Asil says, "I told a gym owner to give me a chance and worked there for free for six months. If I hadn’t secured the job, I don’t know how I would have survived here."

They say they are afraid of returning to Afghanistan, as they fear they will be targeted for supporting the US-led NATO forces.

Khalil Shamas, a 27-year-old former lieutenant told Al Jazeera, "My brother received numerous threatening letters from the Taliban demanding to quit his position before they ultimately killed him."

Shamas and Asil, according to the report, want to migrate to the US but their lack of active service in the Afghan army makes them ineligible to seek asylum.

The publication referred to the International Rescue Committee to reveal that 3,00,000 Afghans had been associated with US operations in Afghanistan since 2001.

It also reports that since the withdrawal of the US, approximately 88,500 Afghans have been resettled in the US, according to the US Department of Homeland Security, while thousands more have applied, seeking asylum.