The day my eldest son put on his military uniform and walked out through the gate, I never thought it would be the last time I would see his footsteps in our courtyard. As always, I prayed for him and told him, \u201cCome back soon.\u201d He said, \u201cMother, don\u2019t worry. I\u2019ll come back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My son was a soldier in the Afghan National Army and served in areas affected by insecurity. He knew there were risks, but he said it was his duty to defend his country. One cold winter night, we were watching the news at home when reports of fighting came from the province where he was stationed. The reports said several soldiers had been killed in clashes with the Taliban. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At that moment, my heart sank and my hands began to tremble. I immediately called my son. Once, twice, ten times\u2026 The phone rang, but he did not answer. Every time the call ended, it felt as if something inside me was breaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then the phone at home rang. It was his commander. He remained silent for a few moments before saying, \u201cMother\u2026 your son has died serving his country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After that, I could not understand anything properly. The house fell silent. His clothes, his bed and his belongings were still there, but he never came home. After his death, my second son was no longer the same. The loss of his brother weighed heavily on him. He repeatedly said he could not remain indifferent and wanted to follow the same path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I begged him not to go, but he would not listen. Then one day, he put on his military uniform and prepared to leave. He sat beside me and said, \u201cMother, if I leave and do not come back, do not grieve. Dying for the country is an honor.\u201d He kissed my hand, and I kissed his forehead. I looked at him and, with a broken heart, entrusted him to God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During those months, I would sometimes speak with him. Two days before he was due to return home, he called me. His voice was calm and happy. He said he would be back soon and asked me to prepare everything so that he could formally ask for the hand of the girl he loved. He even talked about the future and said that this time everything would be fine. For a moment, I felt at peace too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But on the day I was waiting for him to return, the sound of crying and people shouting \u201cAllahu Akbar\u201d suddenly rose from the street. The voices came closer and closer. My heart began to tremble. His father and I ran out of the house. We had barely taken a few steps from the gate when we came face to face with my son\u2019s lifeless body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At that moment, my world ended. I realized that a mother can die twice and still remain alive. Now, when I think about everything, only one question remains in my mind: Why did my sons die? Why were so many people killed? Why were so many mothers left grieving? Why were so many women left widowed and so many children orphaned?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most painful thing for me is that today I am still living in the same land where the killers of my children, the Taliban, breathe under the same sky as I do; those who took the lives of thousands of families, while the shadow of their suffering has still not disappeared from this land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pain of losing my sons is one thing. But even harder is having to live alongside their killers, in the same homeland and under the same sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The day my eldest son put on his military uniform and walked out through the gate, I never thought it would be the last time I would see his footsteps in our courtyard. As always, I prayed for him and told him, \u201cCome back soon.\u201d He said, \u201cMother, don\u2019t worry. I\u2019ll come back.\u201d My son …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,46,57,52,35],"tags":[77,76,74,73,82,80,81,75,79,78],"class_list":["post-1226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-analyses","category-analysis","category-daily-reports","category-human-rights","tag-afghan-national-army","tag-afghanistan","tag-families-of-victims","tag-former-afghan-soldiers","tag-human-rights","tag-mothers","tag-orphans","tag-taliban","tag-widows","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bareenmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bareenmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bareenmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bareenmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bareenmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1226"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bareenmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1452,"href":"https:\/\/bareenmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226\/revisions\/1452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bareenmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bareenmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bareenmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bareenmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}