"Hang in there": Australia’s fight to save Afghanistan family from Taliban

Words: Fiona Harari | Christine Middap Producer: Louise Starkey

This is the text exchange between former boxer-turned-human rights lawyer Alison Battison and Ehmad, an Afghan refugee attempting to flee Afghanistan with his wife, Leyla, three young children and 21-year-old nephew after the Taliban took over. The family of six are among the thousands of Afghans trying to escape by jumping into sewers on the edge of the Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Standing knee-deep in water with human excrement for hours was the choice they had in August to gain the attention of foreign forces and be saved from the decimation of Afghanistan. People hollered and waved their passports, as well as home-made signs, to be seen, hauled up onto the street and processed inside the terminal. Afghans who managed to achieve this would be flown out of the country and to a foreign haven. But the journey was tough, with some being trampled in the process and others collapsing from standing in the heat for hours or killed by stray bullets.

Those with proof of a valid visa application were advised to immediately head to Kabul’s airport, before the US and its partners withdrew from the country. It could only be accessed by a series of guarded gates and inside they would be processed.

Ehmad and his family — wife Leyla, daughters Sana and Sahar, son Ehsan and nephew Mehmood — were instructed to do exactly that and gain the attention of a western military official as they were on the "Australian list". However, the journey was almost made impossible with children in tow. They attempted to get through the gates to the airport five times, before being told to head into a canal on the airport's perimeter — below ground level and less likely to be the scene of a stampede.

"They were this lovely family and they kept trying and trying and trying. And the dad would say, 'It doesn't matter whatever happens to us here, it's better than what will happen under the Taliban'." "The father on occasion would send me a voice message: 'We've just been crushed. We've just been attacked.' Breathless, frightened, putting his family at risk for potentially being saved — after some random person in Australia says: 'We've done a visa application for you. You've got to get yourself into the airport.' I can't believe this ­family kept trusting us." Alison Battison Human rights lawyer

The family, who became known as the "Karate Family", were able to get inside Kabul airport on the afternoon of August 25. They headed to the gymnasium-turned-Australian camp, where they were cleared at a medical clinic and, armed with a letter confirming an application was lodged for an offshore visa on their behalf, had their names ticked off and hands stamped for travel. However, they were then almost sent home after the rules changed and only those who had a visa — not just proof of an application — were allowed onto a flight.

"I was thinking... for four nights and five days you played with the life of your kids. You put your lives at risk and you arrived here. And now they are sending you back."

However, luck was on their side and after a three-hour wait "without any destiny, without information about what would happen next" they were approved to travel. The Karate Family landed in Australia on September 7 and now live in a suburban area of Sydney.

"We were blind. We were in our own country but someone else was guiding us. I didn’t know them. But how they helped me; they weren’t even sleeping… They proved that humanity still exists."

Less than 24 hours after the family was plucked from the canal, suicide bombings killed dozens of people around the airport. Having helped about 4100 people to escape, Australia suspended its evacuation program. All up, Battisson’s network helped about 110 people to flee the country. The Karate Family was on one of the last Australian flights out of Kabul.