I am an Afghan Refugee

by Mohammad Zaki Zaki

I am a refugee
from Afghanistan
I can’t stay in my homeland
I am unable
to abandon my motherland
Yet, I can’t sleep safely,
Can’t walk freely,
Can’t talk loudly
I have no hope to reconstruct
my homeland
I have no rights

I thought going to Iran
was a way
to save my life
But I was a stranger,
humiliated and insulted
treated as nonhuman
I came to know myself
as a foreigner
Everyone cursed me
Everybody mocked me
I had to quit Iran

On my way back
to Afghanistan
Our kids didn’t have
the right to cry
Our mothers had no right
to nourish them
Everyone was struggling
Some had to steal and rob
We were called trashy Afghans
Worthless Afghans
Famed as orphans
Treated as animals
We were fighting to survive
Pretending to be healthy

I hope to make my own country
I wish to be counted as human
To experience humanity
To not be labeled a terrorist
I dream not to be insulted anymore

I am a proud Afghan
I hope for a future where all Afghans
can stand proud
embracing our identity
and our dignity
Respecting our race and nation

I ask God to take our hands
To save our lives

Editor’s note: The excerpt below from the NYTimes on 8/20/25 explains what happened that inspire Zaki to write this; the latest nightmare that has been forced upon Afghans, in this case refugees who have been living in Iran.

“More than 70 Afghans died in a bus accident in northern Afghanistan on Tuesday, local officials said, after the vehicle collided with a truck and a motorbike in Herat Province, on the border with Iran. It was one of countless buses that have been ferrying Afghan refugees expelled en masse from Iran this year.

Of the 78 people killed, 71 were bus passengers returning from Iran and 17 were children, Ahmadullah Muttaqi, a provincial communication official, said.”