Irish Examiner view: Irish welcome for refugees warms hearts

100 days later

Brothers Emran, 8,  Arafat, 10,  and   Abas Faizi, 14, and their parents Nooria and Mohammed Arif Faizi fled their home in Kabul to come to Cork. Children from local families welcome the boys and their parents to Ballinora. Included are Josh Roxburgh, Louis McCoy, Harry McCoy, and sisters Zoe and Mia Roxburgh with a welcome banner/poster.

In the 100 days this week since the US, preceded by the British, pulled out of Afghanistan and the Taliban resumed control, much has changed for the ordinary citizens of that country.

The primacy of sharia law has been reasserted; education has been segregated; women have been excluded from employment, from sport and from government; vigilante revenge has taken place; and the opium industry has expanded.

None of this is surprising and was foreshadowed from the moment the victorious warlords gathered around the table for that stylised photo opportunity in the presidential palace in Kabul in the last week of August.

Britain spent some £22bn in Afghanistan and lost 450 lives. American costs were more than $1tn, with 2,465 fatalities. Now that such investment and support has withered ignominiously it is left, as it often is, to charities, and churches, and non-government organisations and ordinary people of goodwill to help. And in a season of relentlessly sobering news our account of the welcome and assistance given in Cork to a midwife and her family is a moment of light to warm us all.

Nooria Faizi and her husband and family have been given a Government visa waiver, taken into the Irish Refugee Protection Programme, and offered a place to live by a Cork man. Nooria had previously travelled throughout her country and across Taliban-controlled areas to provide reproductive health education and care to Afghan women. Her husband Arif was a soldier who worked alongside the Americans. Both were at risk because of their associations with the fallen Western-backed government.

The family fled for safety, leaving behind their possessions except for a traditional Afghan family cooking pot. They crossed into Pakistan despite their seven-year-old son being interrogated by Taliban border guards.

“I am so happy,” said Nooria. “We want to integrate into the community and our focus is on that.”

We are happy they are here, and salute them for their inspirational story. Let us hope they can rebuild their lives with us and benefit from the dangers they have overcome and the adventures they have faced.