Afghan refugee who fled the Taliban with just a backpack graduated from UK university with a master’s degree

Real Fix

Credit: SWNS / Naimat Zafary  A refugee who fled the Taliban in Afghanistan on a plane with just a backpack has graduated a UK university with a master’s degree.  Naimat Zafary, 37, graduated from Sussex University with a merit in Governance, Development and Public Policy this week.  He was forced to flee his home in Kabul, Afghanistan, when the Taliban took over in August 2021.   Naimat was evacuated by British troops with his wife, Saima, 30, and four children in August 2021.  The family took just a backpack each - containing food, water and a change of clothes.  After spending four months in a hotel in London, the Home Office arranged a permanent move to Hove, East Sussex, in December 2021.

Transcript

00:00 Naimatullah Zafari.

00:02 [cheering]

00:03 I carried Afghanistan because I just wanted to give a message to Afghan girls.

00:08 Your feeling was there with me.

00:10 And the struggle that you're going through, no matter what, you will be the one I want there.

00:16 You will make it.

00:17 [cheering]

00:19 [music]

00:27 We left Afghanistan when the collapse happened in 2021.

00:33 I left my country along with my family on the 23rd of August from Afghanistan,

00:38 coming from a very difficult situation, crossing 20 to 25,000 people with kids with me,

00:46 who at that time, my son was only 18 months old.

00:49 So having female children with you and older age, my parents with me, was a way too difficult.

00:57 It was crossing a few checkpoints from Taliban.

01:01 Crossing that area of 25 to 20,000 people by itself was a very challenging situation.

01:09 So we just only had two pairs of clothes with us and we made it.

01:14 And we came to UK, London.

01:16 I hear the news and in the media, I witnessed that news was the blast.

01:20 The blast, right, where the police, we crossed.

01:25 Had I made a small delay or small mistake, my family might have been on that blast.

01:33 [music]

01:37 I was applying for a student scholarship in 2015 or 2016.

01:46 I was applying every year, keeping in mind it will happen one day.

01:50 So finally it happened in 2021 and I received the Sheeran Scholarship Award.

01:56 But it happened in a time when we lost a country, when we lost a system, when we lost a government.

02:02 A lot of the things which we were hoping for, and thankfully, I made it to University of Sussex.

02:08 [applause]

02:12 I carried a plant flag because I just wanted to give a message to our plant girls.

02:17 But I have also presented you on a stage of a top-notch university of the UK.

02:24 You were there with me. Your feeling was there with me.

02:27 And the struggle that you are going through, no matter what, you will be there.

02:34 The winner will be there. You will make it.

02:36 They will have the stage in Afghanistan.

02:41 They will proudly walk through, represent their country, represent their flag.

02:46 And then it will serve the bigger community.

02:49 When we made it to London, the people, they were coming and they were giving us, you know, sympathetic messages.

03:01 And giving us a hope that things will be fine.

03:04 So thank you to the British people. Thank you to the UK government.

03:09 And also thanks to those who really said yes to our calls for our rights for education.

03:16 [applause]

03:22 [music]

03:24 [silence]

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