Trapped in Afghanistan: when studying abroad becomes an impossible mission

KabulFor many people, Afghanistan has become a country with no way out, where leaving temporarily to receive medical treatment, study, visit family, or even rest for a few days has become a rare and expensive privilege. I have never left Afghanistan nor have I traveled to any other country. For me, traveling had always been something that might happen one day, not a necessity.

But when my articles about life under the Taliban regime were published in ARA, a Catalan businessman who had read my texts offered me help to continue my studies abroad. With his support, I was accepted into a master's program at a university in Ireland. For me, this opportunity meant much more than just continuing my studies. It represented an opportunity to build a future outside the increasingly restrictive environment in which I had lived and worked as a journalist.

But being accepted by a university was only the beginning. I am still struggling to obtain a student visa. If my visa is approved, I will have to travel to a third country. Since many visa procedures cannot be completed within Afghanistan, I began looking for a way to reach one of the neighboring countries.

Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, at least for many Afghan applicants, do not offer a normal and simple path to submit visa applications. When I started looking for a legal way to travel to a neighboring country, I realized that even applying for an ordinary visa had become a closed path for many Afghans.

14,000 dollars for a visa

To obtain my visa, I contacted several companies that offered to manage the process. The responses scared me. They all spoke of an unofficial market where obtaining a visa could require enormous amounts of money. The lowest price they asked me for was around 2,400 dollars. For some destinations, the price was much higher. They even went as far as asking me for about 14,000 dollars for a Turkish visa.

I just looked at the prices and could not believe that leaving the country where I live legally could cost so much. I felt as if I were in a prison where I had to pay to open the doors. But I was not the only person waiting in front of a visa services company. I saw young people, old men and women, and families waiting to obtain visas. Many were sick and wanted to leave Afghanistan to receive medical treatment.

For years, Pakistan and India have been important destinations for Afghans seeking medical care. Families who could not access treatments for serious illnesses within Afghanistan traveled to these countries. Now, even leaving to receive treatment has become a great challenge.

The people I saw were not necessarily looking for vacations or family visits. Some were looking for a way to survive. Some people borrow money, sell the gold they have, or give up the few properties they possess to be able to pay the costs of the visas. I could not stop thinking: if a patient has to pay thousands of dollars simply to be able to leave the country and receive treatment, what happens to someone who cannot even afford to pay for the treatment?

A trapped population

The problem is not simply that visas are expensive. For many Afghans, there is no normal and accessible way to leave the country. This pushes people towards intermediaries, unofficial markets, and costly and, at times, dangerous alternatives. In such a system, whoever has more money has more chances of getting out. Whoever does not have money stays. And this "staying" no longer feels like a choice. It feels like being trapped.

Before living through this experience, I thought that the closure of Afghanistan was primarily political, related to security, or economic. Now I understand that a country can, in fact, keep its population within its borders without needing to officially close its doors.

For students, this means that a university admission letter does not necessarily imply that they can reach the classroom. For patients, having a medical appointment abroad does not necessarily mean they can reach the hospital. For families, having relatives on the other side of the border does not mean they can visit them. A passport can give you, in principle, the right to travel, but this right becomes almost useless when there is no practical and affordable way to obtain the visas necessary to cross the borders.

I am still waiting for my student visa and I do not know how I will end up leaving Afghanistan. For me, this is not simply waiting for a visa. It is waiting for a door to open, a door through which I can move towards the future that I have worked for years to build.

Why should it be so hard to leave my country? Why does my country feel like a prison? I am not saying that all Afghans are prisoners. But for many of us, the borders of Afghanistan are no longer just lines on a map. They are walls that, to cross, require money, contacts, luck, and, at times, taking risks.

If a person has no normal way to legally leave their country, can we really say they live there with freedom? Sometimes I think we are not trapped only in our homes or in our cities. We are trapped behind walls that grow higher every day. And, for many of us, one of the biggest walls is this: we may want to leave, but we are no longer sure that there is a legal way to get out.