Night time protected Shafiqullah Akbari as he climbed his home’s rooftop with the exhaust pipe of his fireplace in hand. Overlooking the pitch-black, Soviet-patrolled streets of Kabul, the distant mountains barely a shadow, the 17-year-old boy took a deep breath, held up the pipe as a megaphone, and called out “Allahu Akbar.”Boys on every other rooftop followed suit, one after another, and then altogether.That night in 1979, the rooftops rung with the hopeful echoes of a prayer — a simple act of defiance against the Russian invaders.“When you would hear this it would make you understand that the whole country is against Russia,” Akbari, 55, said in his Brampton home. He spoke softly, pausing as if hearing the sounds of their voices. Days after that night in Kabul, with only $100 (U.S) in his pocket and a shawl the colour of sand wrapped around him, Akbari left his family and his city and walked 10 hours to Wardak province, his ancestral home, and then 10 days to Peshawar, Pakistan, to escape the war. In the past 30 years, Afghan refugees have consistently streamed into Canada, more so than any other country, including Syria. A total of 37,265 Afghans have arrived since 1991.The Star spoke to three generations of Afghan-Canadian refugees who fled during the Soviet-led war beginning in 1979 and during the ongoing U.S.-led war against the Taliban that began in 2001, which Canada was once a part of. The numbers of Afghan refugees are expected to only grow as militant violence increases and aid groups slowly withdraw from the country. As the war and its players have dramatically shifted over the decades, the process to seek safety as an Afghan refugee has changed — with a relatively simple process in the 1980s and ’90s to a more arduous system today. Akbari was part of the first wave of refugees to Canada, arriving in 1988, at a time when seeking asylum was relatively easy. In an old, black briefcase with silver clasps, ...
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