Zaheer and Zohra Dauwer stood at the decrepit door way of a Hamilton, Ont., shelter, still holding on to their two 20 kilogram suitcases. They waited as a staff member ran through a list of rules and regulations for the young Afghan couple who, still clad in their winter jackets, had nowhere else to go. On May 26, 2009, the young husband and wife were more than 10,750 kilometres from their home in Kabul, Afghanistan, where family was everywhere, ready to welcome them at any moment with love and hospitality.They had never planned to leave Kabul. Zaheer was completing a masters program in Arizona so he could be qualified to teach English as a second language. Their plan was always to go back to Afghanistan. But, the U.S.-led war had become more violent. By 2009, the streets of Kabul were littered with the remains of rockets, hand bombs and grenades. Suicide attacks were common. Many in the country had never imagined someone from their city putting on a vest and blowing themselves up.Read more: He fled Afghanistan in 1979 with $100 in his pocket. Today he longs for a country that no longer exists.Her daughter got sick and died without her mother. This is the impact of war on people.Over the phone, their families warned them not to return. They were told by friends to go to Canada, which, they said, was more hospitable and welcoming than the U.S. Zaheer and Zohra’s profiles as English-speaking, foreign NGO employees made them more likely to be targeted by insurgent groups. “It was the worst time to be in Afghanistan,” their families told them. “Don’t come back.” In the last 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 have fled during the Soviet-led war beginning in 1979 and during the ongoing U.S.-led war against the Taliban that began in 2001, ...
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