Afghans in New Delhi are watching the news from home with horror. India could be a natural destination for Afghan refugees, but many there can't get work visas and are trying to reach a third country.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The events of the past few days in Afghanistan have been painful for Afghans outside of their country, too. Millions started fleeing Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion some 40 years ago and have continued to do so since. NPR's Lauren Frayer went to meet some Afghan refugees in neighboring India.
(SOUNDBITE OF AFGHAN MUSIC)
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Afghan music wafts through this market called Kabuli, as in Kabul. The bakeries here sell thick Afghan bread. The language you hear in the streets is Dari.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Dari).
FRAYER: But I'm in New Delhi, and this market is the hub of India's small community of Afghan refugees.
NURIA SIDDIQUI: I am so sad for Afghanistan. People are injured. And my family yesterday - my brother's son is...
FRAYER: This is your nephew, and he's injured.
SIDDIQUI: Yes. Yes.
FRAYER: Nuria Siddiqui shows me photos of the relatives she's trying to evacuate to India, but visa offices are shut, and Kabul's airport is in chaos. Everyone here has a tragic story.
MUNEER AHMED FAIZ: You know, in Afghanistan, I saw lots of people was dying in front of me. Like, there was blood. There was, you know - this was my very bad experience.
FRAYER: Muneer Ahmed Faiz fled Afghanistan eight years ago when he was 16. India was an obvious choice for him. It's a democracy. It's close to home. And he grew up to the soundtrack of Bollywood.
FAIZ: I just used to listen to these kind of songs.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FRAYER: So this is an Indian singer.
FAIZ: Yeah.
FRAYER: Muneer hoped to prosper in India and send money home. Afghans are the largest refugee group here, but even with refugee status from the U.N., they still don't have certain rights from the Indian government.
FAIZ: We cannot work proper. We cannot study proper. Even they are not providing us SIM cards for our phones, you know.
FRAYER: Most refugees are in limbo in India. The government has not signed on to U.N. refugee conventions and doesn't have an asylum program of its own. Hamsa Vijayraghavan is a lawyer who represents some of them.
HAMSA VIJAYRAGHAVAN: It's not like going to Europe or the U.S., where eventually you can become a citizen. In India, you don't have that option, which means even after 10 years of being an Afghan refugee in India, it can still be difficult to get formal employment or go to university.
FRAYER: That's why many Afghans don't plan to stay long. India is, itself, a developing country with high unemployment and low wages. Many would prefer to move on to Europe or North America. Some have even gone back to Afghanistan during periods when it looked more stable. I posed that question to Nuria Siddiqui, the woman who's trying to get her injured nephew out.
Do you think you will ever go back to Kabul?
SIDDIQUI: No never, never because my daughters and education.
FRAYER: She has four daughters whom she fears wouldn't be allowed to go to school now that the Taliban is back in charge. And as we chat, two of her daughters come skipping down the street on their way home from school, their hair in pigtails.
Do you like India?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: Yes. It's beautiful.
FRAYER: Yeah?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: It's beautiful and nice.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: A nice place.
FRAYER: They're excited to sing a song they've learned in English, their fourth language.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Singing together) You by my side. And when I open my eyes, see your sweet face.
FRAYER: Their mother, Nuria, smiles. She grew up under the Taliban in the 1990s and missed five years of her own education.
Lauren Frayer, NPR News, New Delhi.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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