While in Pain and Agony, They Threw Him Among Salts

Jamila Hussaini is a 23-year-old married woman living in the Mirzaolang refugee tents. Jamila was born in Sar-e Pol Province. Until the fighting in Mirzaolang, she lived there in Naoabad’s Masjid Sarsang Village. She used to weave kilim rugs in Mirzaolang and has two sons named Binyamin and Yosuf.

Narrator: Jamila Hussaini (Victim’s sister)

Victim: Sayed Shahbaba Hussaini (45-years-old)

Place of incident: Mirzaolang, Sayad District, Sar-e Pol Province

My name is Jamil Hussaini and I studied till the fourth grade. I am 23-years-old and was born in Mirzaolang. Our village was called Sarsang. I am a housewife and do no other work except taking care of my sons. Previously, I used to weave rugs.

We are three siblings. I have two children named Binyamin, 3, born in Mirzaolang, and Yosuf, 1, who was born in Mazar. Currently, we live in rented houses in the Hassan Abad area of Mazar-e-Sharif. Before, we spent eight months in refugee tents. We lived in Sarsang Village where the fighting happened. Sayed Shahbaba, 45 years of age, was my brother and he was born in Mirzaolang. My brother used to farm in the village but he was literate.

My brother had two wives: six children from his first wife, and three daughters and two sons from his second wife. His eldest child from his first wife is Shah Jahan, 18-years-old, who studied only until the second grade. His second son is 17-years-old and studied until the eighth grade before we fled Mirzaolang. He has another son called Mohammad Ali and the name of his 14-year-old daughter is Bibijan, who does not study. Another son is called Juma Khan, 13, and the other daughter is Sumaya, 12. His children from his second wife are as follows: Zubaida (daughter), 12, Arifa (daughter), 9, Jawad (son), 7, Ruqaya (daughter), 4 and Kazim (son), only five-and-a-half years old.

My brother’s children no longer study after we fled Mirzaolang. There are either no schools here, or people do not want kids from Mirzaolang to study in their schools. The caretaker of the family after my brother was his 17-year-old son. We have left all our belongings - property, land, everything - and now, we have nothing.

When the fighting occurred in Mirzaolang, all thirteen members of the [victim’s] family were inside their home. My other brother also lived on the same property but all their finances and expenses were completely separate. My brother [victim] was the breadwinner of his family. On the night of the attack, all their property and donkeys, stacked with crops and harvest, remained in place while they fled and left everything behind.

On Sunday night, the Taliban captured the [police] checkpoints in Mirzaolang and for two nights, the people fought against the Taliban. On the third night, government forces and tanks came. The people said they would not leave until the last moment. On that last night, we were still in our village and after we came out to the streets, both the Taliban and government forces were shooting but neither side recognized the other, and everyone fled the area. Truly, life is precious. Everyone was trying to save themselves and because of the firing and tanks, all of them were separated while fleeing. We were the first to have escaped the area and it was still dark outside, but we could hear the sounds of gunfire.

My brother was separated from his family who managed to flee to Sar-e Pol with us. However, when we reached Sar-e Pol, he [victim] did not answer his phone and no one knew of his whereabouts. This is until the situation got better. After twelve days, my family went back to the area and found out that my brother had died. During those twelve days, many bodies, including my brother’s, had decomposed and became unrecognizable. My family recognized my brother from his footwear from the Panjshir area. There were around 30 to 40 more dead with my brother. Our relatives say that they could not sleep for one week after collecting the bodies because of how horribly the bodies were torn and decomposed.

Many people were wailing holding onto their father or uncle’s patho, or their mother, sister, or child’s clothes after they had returned to the area. I have videos of some of those scenes that I will show to you.

Truly, they killed the people in a cowardly manner because our area and its residents were not on the battle fronts. They held our people hostage and killed them, no matter their age. My brother’s children would always say that their father was in Mirzaolang to take care of the cattle in order to bring them to the family. However, when the news of my brother’s death reached, my sisters-in-law and their children were completely devastated as they could not believe it. They were all crying.

The children from my brother’s first wife lost both their father and mother. As for the children from the second wife, she’s the only caretaker of the family and they are not in good living circumstances. They do not have any new clothes or good food on Eid or other happy occasions. My sister-in-law (victim’s second wife) barely makes ends meet for eleven members of her family with rug weaving and doing people’s laundry. We never considered the security in Mirzaolang to be bad because all our property, land, and livelihood were there. We never thought that the Taliban would ruin our lives and make us homeless. But no, when the police checkpoints were abandoned, the Taliban surrounded the valley and fired at us. Binyamin, my youngest son, tripped several times when we were fleeing but still, because life is precious, he would do his best to run and escape the area. It was God’s will for some to die, and others to stay alive and get displaced like this.

The Taliban would always come to our village to tell us to surrender but we never did. In the end, neither the government nor the local people were able to defend [against them] until Mirzaolang collapsed and our people were killed. All of the Taliban and Daesh fight like cowards. They attack our homes, villages, and checkpoints without warning. They killed farmers, laborers, and daily workers. I wish our people had weapons to fight against the Taliban and kill them. But no, our people were all impoverished.

Our people (from Mirzaolang) tell the tale of an old man who was confident that the Taliban would not harm him because of his age. He went to the village but the Taliban did not have mercy, even to him. They injured him and afterward, while he was in pain and agony, they threw him among the salt in a salt shop. The old man died there in pain and agony. Believe me when I say that our apple, grape, and other fruits were still hanging in their trees when we fled Mirzaolang. I still cannot sleep well and remember that we would pray to die rather than get captured by the Taliban and not die by their bullet at every moment while fleeing. I still remember the Taliban noises (as a result of their attack); it is truly terrifying. I really want the government to bring my family and me back to Mirzaolang so that we live in our homes independently and not in refugee tents. We are tired of being displaced and homeless. We want to go back to our homes, lands, and its crops.