The Death of my Young Brother Broke my Back

Abdul Qadir Jamshidi is a man with a gray beard, whose forehead wrinkles show more than ever when he talks. He is the first narrator of the incident and he narrates what he saw carefully and in detail. He uses his hands, face, and body a lot while speaking, making his speech beautiful and spectacular. Therefore, there is no blind spot in his speech and he can very easily tell what he has seen. His catchphrase is "Insha'Allah" which is used in cases where it is thought that the sentence is wrong, but it is not and the sentence has its own meaning if it is considered as a catchword.

Narrator: Abdul Qadir Jamshidi (brother)

Victim: Mohammad Hussain Jamshidi (18-years-old)

Time of the incident: January 21, 2018

The place of the incident: Faizabad area, Haftwalaf Village, Rabat Sangi, Herat Province

Type of incident: Roadside mine explosion

I am from Herat, Rabat Sangi District, Yaka Dokan Village. My name is Abdul Qadir. I am 29-years-old. I am busy with my life and in our region, most people's occupation is agriculture like cultivating wheat and barley. My own job: I transport passengers, commuting, taking passengers, I do such things. I go from Herat to Rabat Sangi, which is my village, in the morning and return in the evening. That is my main job.

We are six brothers, our younger brother is a martyr. I am not a big brother either, I am the fifth brother. The sixth is older than us, but the martyr was our younger brother, whose name is Hussain. To support life and find a morsel of bread, Hussain wanted to go Iran, but did not cross the border of Nimroz to Iran. Recently, a new way has been opened from Islam Qala itself, which they say is on our side. From there, people are taken to Iran with a cost of 5000-10000 AFN per person.

Four of our children left the village together for Iran. They rode in a white care (a white Sarachah) from Rabat Sangi. From our village, I brought them to Rabat Sangi by my own car. I returned home and 20 minutes after their departure, we received the news of the martyrdom.

He took them on board, I said goodbye to them, they left. I returned home. Before I got home, I got a call. I did not get out of the car yet. From Sarachah, they said, 'the car of these children has been hit by a mine.' I asked where. They said in Faizabad. I did not call anyone else but my two brothers. We didn't call anyone because of the panic and fear we had.

We only meant that, God forbid, it's a landmine, if it had exploded, the car might be needed there. We should arrive sooner. God forbid, if one or two of them are wounded, they don't lose blood, and we can help them. We said it would be too late to call others in the village. We moved to Faizabad, from Faizabad to Alaf, from Alaf to down in the valley. There is a pass in the middle of Faizabad and Alaf. Going by the pass, we noticed the car. When we reached it, there were ten people inside the car.

Among the ten people in the car, there was a child, not more than ten-years-old. The child's home was in Herat. He had gone to the border area to see his relatives. Even that ten-year-old child was inside the car. One of the ten people survived. The others, nine others, I collected the pieces of their bodies myself.

People were afraid that, God forbid, we couldn't go around them as there may be mines, but we didn't know. I was thinking of getting there early to see how many people were still alive. Someone may have needed help getting the people to a car, or to the clinic, or to the city hospital. I was saying to myself and addressing the driver: "What are you crazy about? You don't have the right to go there, even the government people didn't bother themselves to go there."

They are much closer than us. Their distance [from the accident site] was ten minutes; It took us an hour to get there. They had arrived earlier than us. The government people feared that, God forbid, there were mines around or that the opponents, if we got closer, may attack us. We did not understand this. We reached the car. When we arrived, there was nothing from the car. The mine exploded in the middle of the car. There was nothing of the seat, the gate, not even the steering wheel. There was a bit of the car's pose and a bit of the trunk left. Others parts of the car were torn to shreds. Nothing was found in that car.

I looked around. There were parts of bodies everywhere. I thought that they could be not collected like that. All cars had a tarpaulin to sit on in the Sarache stall. I took it and collected the bones one by one and brought them together. Whenever a mine exploded, parts of body were thrown about one hundred to two hundred meters away. I found bodies from the waist above, while their waist down did not exist. Even one of our son-in-laws, Morteza’s father, Khair Mohammad, may God have mercy on him, only half of his face and head existed. Half of the forehead, from between of the eyebrow, the right side of head.

I didn't recognize him until I turned him around. When I turned his face away, I saw his head and brain... that this Muslim is Khair Mohammad, may God forgive him. All these nine people who had died, I collected all of them one by one. There was no car, but a flying couch. I lifted the chairs and brought them to Rabat Sanghi clinic. I said that their relatives should not go the incident site; the situation is not safe, lest there be another misfortune.

I said, since we already went to the site, let's take all of these to the clinic. It is both the base of the government and under the control of the government. Their relatives would take the corpses from the clinic. That's where we took them and went to Rabat Sangi again. Two to three thousand people gathered near the corpses of our people. It was very terrible. My prayer is that, God, no one should die young! It's hard.

Oh, not to forget, there was a second car following the car that exploded. There were all women and children in the second car. There had been distance between the first and second one. When the first car hit the mine, the second car stopped and called the relatives about the incident. A person by the name of Ghulam Nabi called me, so I went to the incident site.

Twenty minutes by car, two hours on foot. Faizabad is in the hands of the government. The same area where the incident happened is mostly in the hands of the government; Taliban traffic is very low. Be informed, they said, that the TAPI project will be passed from there. At that time, it was said that the government was looking to have that area in its hands. On the other hand, the Taliban was also thinking that it had that area in its hands. Let the TAPI project not be launched, God willing. The Talib in that area will be guided by Iran, who will lead them, and even Iran support them financially.

For this reason, they started a war, a fight, and put mines there - so that the TAPI project doesn’t start. These young people were killed by these Muslims. The government says they don't know, the Taliban also say they don't know; no one has given us an answer yet. We wandered and did not understand. We have no more prayers, God, we have entrusted everything to you. We have no strength and no force anymore. Neither Taliban nor the government took responsibility at the end.

I think 100% that if they [the victims] were government staff, the Taliban would claim that they did it to get the story to the media, and take responsibility for it. Because they were not government men, and they were innocents, the Taliban did not take responsibility. Four of these corpses were ours, which I took to Yaka Dokan with my car among my people. There were nine corpses. Five others were from Herat City, from the Babahaji neighbourhood,

It has had a lot of effects on our family. For example, we have a father who was paralyzed due to grief. Two years have passed from the incident, and my father can’t survive without medicine and without a doctor, there is no other way. Our mother is also crazy and nervous. I brought a coat, a full-blooded coat, that Mullah did not allow to be buried with the body. A piece of his clothes remained clean as it was stained with dirt but there was no blood. My mother took it and hit it on her face and head for an hour. Her nerves were broken. We haven't seen a good day in our house since the day he left.

There were six of us. Now there are five of us. After the incident, people's uneasiness has led to judgement whether we have become addicted to drugs or what other calamity has befallen us. The young men who used to be stout, now have gained strength, they don't even weigh 10 kilos. Believe me, dying young is very difficult. May God not show this calamity to anyone. Those who have young people die suffer the most. Ground from the fourth heaven, and our strength is over, and the only thing I can say is that, God, I am satisfied with your satisfaction.

My brother had very good manners. He always treated his elders with respect. If you advised him for hours, he would listen with full attention. Believe me, I had scolded my brother many times, but he always just laughed in response and said nothing to me out of respect. When we review his memories and history now, I say to myself that he was not meant to stay.

I am sure that the example of this young man is no longer in our village. The four people who were martyred were all from the same village and all of them were of the same age. Among these four people, Khair Mohammad was married and the others were single. Khair Mohammad had four children, one born after he passed. Two daughters and two sons. When he passed away, his wife was pregnant. It's been eight months since his son was born, but he hasn't seen his father's face, and his eldest son is in charge. Our family takes care of them.

My message is that until we fraternize with each other, the stranger will not. A foreign country never wants us to live together as brothers. My point is that until we unite in the name of Afghanistan, the war of fratricide and dying young will not end. My prayer is that God, if my prayer is accepted, then no one will see the death of their young family members. Our youth are our future.

For Hussain himself, I have this message: No matter how sad we are, we love you and remember you as long as we are alive. You were a good brother and good son to your parents.