A poem about Afghanistan

Khorshid*, a young Afghan woman who now lives in Germany, wrote a poem to mark the anniversary. Terre des Hommes has permission to publish it:

*Name changed to protect the individual

 

August 15, 2021 - The day I finally lost my home

A cry against forgetting. Against silence. Against
indifference.

I will never forget August 15, 2021.
Never.

On that day, the Taliban captured Kabul.
On that day, not just a city fell – a country fell.
My homeland fell.

I had lost them before – that happened when I had to flee.
But on that day, I lost them for good. Not through my escape. But
because there is no Afghanistan left for me to ever reclaim.

What remains is a place without hope. Without freedom. Without a future.

Since that day, a crime has been committed –
day after day. Hour after hour. Life after life.

I see how women are systematically disenfranchised.
I read about girls being expelled from schools—
how their futures are erased, their voices stifled, their dreams buried.
I hear them say:

“Afghanistan is a prison without walls—with the sky above us and
the ground beneath us. But without air to breathe.”

They are right.

Afghan women live like prisoners in their own country.
Without rights. Without protection. Without hope.

And the world?
It watches.
It remains silent.
It calculates.
It forgets.

Germany promised help.
It promised to evacuate 1,000 vulnerable Afghans every month.
Three years later, it's barely 6,000.

What about all the people who worked for Western organizations?
The activists, journalists, teachers?
The women who embodied hope—and are now hunted, imprisoned, and tortured for it?
They were betrayed. And they were abandoned.

And meanwhile, Iran and Pakistan push Afghans back into hell every single day.
To the borders. Into violence. Into death.
And Europe?
It looks away. Germany, too. Even today.

I am safe.
But my heart is not.

I am allowed to study.
I am allowed to live.
Yet every day I ask myself:
Why me?
And why not them?

I speak with girls in Afghanistan.
I hear their tears.
I read their messages, in which they whisper that they can't go on.
That they want to give up.

And me?
I cry with them.
I scream—inside.
I feel powerless.

I live—while they die.
I fight—while they have no strength left.
I dream—while their dreams are trampled underfoot.

What has happened is betrayal.
What continues to happen is a silent murder—of dignity, of hope, of life.

The world has abandoned Afghanistan.
The Taliban rule with fear, with violence, with ideology—and the West watches.
The international community, which once promised freedom, now allows an entire generation to disappear into darkness.

But we will not be silent.
We must not.

Because you can lose your homeland.
But you cannot forget it.

I have lost my homeland.
But I have kept my voice.
And I will use it.

For all those who are no longer allowed to speak.
For all those who have been silenced.
Let us remember.
Let us speak.
Let us act.

For the girls who are not allowed to learn.
For the women who are not allowed to live.
For Afghanistan.