Refugee's tale of life and flight from Kabul

"We were like prisoners inside our home. I was so much disappointed when the Taliban came, especially about the education of my daughters," says Shaima, talking with a foreign male visitor for the first time in five years. "I was afraid even in Peshawar, [Pakistan] that they would stop us and make us go back, and only until I came here, then I was feeling a little better."

Pakistan - already home to some 2 million Afghans, the world's largest refugee population - has closed its borders to all but those in urgent need. The United Nations says 80,000 refugees have arrived here since Sept. 11, and has warned of a potential influx of as many as 1 million.

When the bombing campaign began on Oct. 7, Shaima says she and most of her neighbors were happy, at least in the privacy of their homes. But then the sounds of the bombing moved from military targets and communications centers, such as the transmission tower for the Taliban's Radio Shariat, perched on the mountain near her house.

"At night, when the bombing started, the children were yelling, crying, shouting," she recalls. "I was making them calm, advising them that we will be somewhere safe soon. I was afraid also, but inside. I couldn't show it."

As afraid he and his wife were, Amamodin says the Taliban appear more frightened. Amamodin says Taliban morale in Kabul is deteriorating. "The Taliban were so much frightened on the first day of the bombing," he says. "They stay in a mosque at night and when people come to pray, they tell them to go away."

Compared to the long, difficult trek most Afghan refugees face, Amamodin admits he had it easy. With two tin trunks of clothes, his wife's jewelry, and 25,000 rupees (about $400) in savings, Amamodin joined two friends - the chief of Ariana Airlines and a former Taliban military officer - and boarded a van to Jalalabad.

From there, they paid a guide 350 rupees (less than $6) per person to take them on a seven-hour hike toward the border, an hour-long mountain climb, and finally a small trot to a waiting fleet of private buses in the autonomous tribal town of Door Baba, within Pakistan.

It was there that Amamodin's journey almost came to an end.

A policeman stopped the bus, boarded it, and told Amamodin that he and his family would have to return to Afghanistan. Amamodin pleaded with the man, pointing to his wife and children. How could he support them in Afghanistan? He asked. And how could he take them back to a land of war?

Empathy prevailed, sort of. "The policeman said, 'OK, give me 2,000 rupees,'" Amamodin says with a grin.

Once inside Pakistan, Amamodin says the first thing he did was trim his long beard. His wife and daughters stowed their burqas, and his sons went looking for work. Now they are inundated with visitors, mostly fellow refugees from Kabul asking for the latest news of relatives still inside Afghanistan.

Soon, he will join the thousands of Afghans seeking to be classified first as refugees, and second, as candidates for political asylum. In this line, money means nothing.

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