Many of us cried like little children—We had lost everything we worked for our entire lives.
In the past two decades, we could dream. We could become doctors, college instructors, business owners. We could drive, compete in sports, represent our country in parliament. Now, that is all gone.
I was the only point of contact for the girls and their families. Hope was hard to come by, but I couldn’t leave my sisters behind.
Batons, sticks, electrical cables, and whips pummeled my thighs, back, shoulder, and face. The blows broke my right hand. My mouth oozed blood, and bruises covered my body. When I begged for my release, they just beat me harder.
I closed the shop and rushed to my house. The bodies of my children and wife lay buried under the debris. My father, brother, and neighbors helped me carry my dead family out of the rubble.
I ask, “Why am I alive,” when I cannot study, work, or even move about. For 20 years, I have dreamed. Every single second—every moment of my life—I was proud to be a woman in Afghanistan. Now, we are left with nothing but a grim life and dread of the future.
If Afghan citizens cooperated with us, the enemy killed or intimidated them. During the day, to our faces, they loved us. But at night, when we could no longer protect them, they loved the Taliban.
Deep in the jungle of Negros Island, Philippines, a Communist insurgency marches on, 52 years into the guerilla war.
They risked their lives as interpreters for the British Armed Forces in their home of Afghanistan. Now the UK is gone, the Taliban have taken over, and they're lives are in danger.
Although I am an agent of the Guard, situations like these, where human beings risk their lives to improve their living conditions, are heartbreaking.
Omar Bekali, 45, is considered the first person to speak publicly about being detained in China’s concentration camps for Uyghurs.
After killing students in the classrooms, the terrorists gathered their energy and prepared an intense attack on the residence halls.