I have never traveled outside of Afghanistan. Therefore, I don't know what it's like to live elsewhere, nor what happens in other developed countries when there's a major storm or earthquake. I assume people there can receive help or perhaps are alerted when something like that happens. In Afghanistan, on the other hand, you can expect absolutely nothing. Sometimes I think my country is the end of the world, a place where death returns one way or another every season of the year, whether from war, cold, floods, earthquakes... Each disaster is worse than the last and reminds us of our vulnerability. And worst of all, often no tragedy comes alone.

I saw it all with my own eyes: shattered skulls, severed limbs, bodies lying on the ground... The Pakistani bombing of a drug rehabilitation center in Kabul on the night of March 16 was devastating. I am a journalist and I know my job is to go to places, see, and report. But, in this case, what I saw has deeply disturbed me. I am 25 years old. I wonder how many young people my age in other countries have seen what I have seen.

“I will bury you right here”. That is what a Taliban officer told me on Valentine’s Day in Kabul. It has been nearly two weeks since February 14, but I am still carrying that day inside me.

Going to the gym has never been a common habit for all women in Afghanistan. In many remote areas, women do not even know what a gym is. For them, being active means working in the fields, carrying water, or spending long hours doing unpaid labor at home.

The knock came late at night, the kind of knock that doesn’t belong to ordinary life. It was around eleven. I don’t remember the exact month, but I remember the sound clearly. It froze the air inside our home.

People who have never lived in Kabul often imagine Afghanistan as a dry and warm country. Many are surprised when I tell them how cold it becomes in winter. Kabul is a city situated at an altitude of about 1,800 meters and surrounded by mountains, and every winter it snows and temperatures can reach ten or fifteen degrees below zero. The cold is sharp enough to numb your hands within minutes, and the air itself feels heavy, biting, and relentless.

I had always dreamed of pursuing a master’s degree in journalism. It was not an unrealistic dream,until the Taliban turned it into one inside Afghanistan. Universities closed, futures narrowed, and plans that once felt within reach suddenly became distant.

Madina Ayar writes for the ARA (You can see her eyes, but nothing else, in the photograph accompanying this text) from Kabul, about Afghan restaurants. She explains that "before" they were one of the few leisure venues where men and women sat together, but that the last time she went to one, "the garden area, which used to be where families sat, had become a 'women-only' space and men weren't allowed in." The waiters said, "Ladies, stay here. Gentlemen, you must go to the men's section." They did have a second unisex dining room, but it was like the smoking area in our old bars: no windows, no air.

Not so long ago, going to a restaurant for me was not just about going to a public place; it was a way to breathe. Among the smell of hot rice and fresh bread, among the clinking of spoons and laughter, I could, for a few hours, forget what was happening outside those walls. For my generation -I am 25-, restaurants were something between home and the outside world; a space where family, partners, and friends could sit together and simply be “normal.”

Two years ago, when women’s beauty salons were closed, it felt as if a part of our lives had been locked away behind those doors. I remember the last time I went to a salon; the space smelled of endings, like the day you realize something you’ve grown used to is about to be erased from your life forever. My beautician had gathered all her tools. The small jars of creams and colors, the brushes,she placed them one by one into an old box. The sound of the little containers closing was like gentle taps on the heart.

A woman chasing a ball was never well-received in Afghanistan. But with the Taliban's rise to power in 2021, it became completely forbidden. Women cannot play football in Afghanistan, nor can they participate in any other sport. However, the Afghan women's national football team has risen from the ashes, returning to the pitch this October and participating in an international competition. All thanks to Khalida Popal, the team's first captain, who refused to give up. "It has been a very proud moment and our way of fighting against the ideology that considers women should stay in the kitchen," she says with conviction. Of course, the road has not been easy.

During my university years, from 2018 to 2022, I had a blue pair of jeans that I wore almost every day. They were simple and not expensive, but to me, they were a part of myself. Over time, the fabric had softened, and the knees had slightly faded. When I wore them, I felt comfortable and truly myself. I always kept them on the top shelf of my wardrobe, knowing that I would choose them again tomorrow.

She's a woman, Afghan, and a film director. The perfect combination for the Taliban to consider her. persona non grata After having sidelined women from public life and banned cinema in Afghanistan, Roya Sadat (Herat, 1983) is in Catalonia to present her latest film. Sima's song [Sima's song]. Also, this Monday, in the Asian Film Festival Barcelona His documentary will be screened The sharp edge of peace [The Sharp Edge of Peace], focusing on the only four Afghan women who participated in the peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, which ended with the radicals taking Kabul.

It was almost ten o’clock at night, when two explosions tore through the silence of Kabul. The sound was so fierce that I froze heart pounding, breath caught in my chest. For a moment, I thought the war had found its way back. I ran through the house calling my family’s names. When I saw them safe, I felt my knees weaken with relief. Outside, the city was still too quiet, as if Kabul itself was holding its breath.

The words of Shaharzad Akbar, director of the human rights organization Rawadari, opened the session, already making it clear that this would be an emotional day. "All of us Afghans in this room wish this tribunal could be held in Kabul," he said before pausing, taking a deep breath, and trying not to burst into tears. He then continued in a trembling voice until he managed to regain a steady tone.

It was four in the afternoon when a journalist friend messaged me: “The fiber-optic internet across Afghanistan will probably be cut off.” I felt uneasy, but tried to calm myself; mobile internet would still work, and I could stay connected to the world. I didn’t pay too much attention to the warning. I thought it would be inconvenient, maybe frustrating, but not catastrophic.

His last WhatsApp It's Monday at 1:43 p.m. Three-quarters of an hour later, I answered her, but my message hadn't reached her. However, I wasn't surprised. I thought her mobile phone battery had probably run out and, given the constant power outages in Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan, she hadn't been able to recharge it. However, this Tuesday morning my Afghan colleague still hadn't answered, and that already made me suspicious. I tried calling her, but there was no line.

In Afghanistan's universities, where only men are allowed to study, books written by women are now also prohibited: they are banned. The Taliban government has removed titles written by women from the university education system, as part of a set of new guidelines it approved at the end of August and which the BBC has been able to verify. The new rules also include a ban on teaching up to 18 subjects that deal with women. women's issues, such as gender and development, the role of women in communication, or sociology of women, which can no longer be taught because they are considered "in conflict with the principles of Sharia."

“I endured pain for many nights until the female doctors arrived. Only now I am beginning to feel some relief”, says Qamro Jan, an Afghan woman who has been in agony for days after being seriously injured by the powerful earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan on Monday, with its epicenter in Kunar province. Kunar is one of the most conservative provinces in the country, and male doctors rarely treat women. In other words, only a female doctor can assist them. Under the Taliban, this situation has worsened, and the earthquake has been devastating: hundreds of injured women have had to wait hours and days without medical assistance until doctors from international organizations arrived in the area. And yet, they are not enough.

It will be a matter of the magnitudeBut how easily French cinema engages with immediate reality and boasts of any small feat in a national key. The director of the recent adaptation ofThe Three Musketeers brings to the screen the real episode of the emergency evacuation of hundreds of Afghan refugees carried out in extremis by a handful of French embassy police officers during the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. Based on the book by the man in charge of the operation, 13 days, 13 nights It takes the point of view of the police commander, a pragmatic veteran about to retire who must deal with the absolute chaos of a broken country, the extreme desperation of Afghan civilians, the threat of the Taliban and the doubts of the other police officers and their superiors.