| While others play at the World Cup, the Afghanistan national team are making their way in Australia’s regional leagues. Two years after they fled their country, the past still hurts while the future is uncertain.
Read Matt Pearson’s report from Melbourne
The scenes at Kabul airport two years ago shook the world. Among the desperate people trying to flee the Taliban in August 2021 was national team goalkeeper Fatima Yousufi. Soon after, she found herself trying to make a new home in a land that was almost entirely unfamiliar.
“We fled to Australia. I didn’t know how far it is from Afghanistan,” she told DW in Melbourne. “The only thing I knew was Sydney Opera House from [Disney film] Finding Nemo. At that time, it wasn’t important for us where we were going, because the most important thing was to save our lives.”
Yousufi was accompanied by most of her international teammates, helped by former Afghanistan captain Khalida Popal and former Australia men’s international and human rights campaigner Craig Foster. But not all of her family made it.
Yousufi now lives with three of her siblings, while one further sibling and her parents wait in Pakistan, hoping to join her in Australia. She, in strictly relative terms, is one of the lucky ones.
“In Melbourne, I don’t have a family,” explained striker Manozh Noori to DW. “All of my family is in Pakistan. They moved from Afghanistan to Pakistan when the Australian government said they needed to be in a second country.
“It is the same for a lot of my teammates’ families, they are all in Pakistan waiting to come here to Australia. So at the moment, I’m living alone by myself.
Read the rest of Matt’s report |
