Hujjatullah Zia

Amid the hard times my coun­try is go­ing through, I have left be­hind de­spair and em­braced hope.

Cli­mate change is bring­ing about more dev­as­ta­tion, forc­ing more Afghans to flee.

My coun­try, where the pur­suit of knowl­edge was al­ways ven­er­at­ed, is de­scend­ing into dark­ness.

Un­der the Tal­iban regime, Afghan women are fac­ing grow­ing hos­til­i­ty and re­stric­tions, but they con­tin­ue to re­sist.

Sec­tar­i­an vi­o­lence in Afghanistan is show­ing no sign of abat­ing but our spir­it has not been bro­ken.

Do not for­get us.

It was a mis­take not to in­clude the Tal­iban in the post-2001 state-build­ing ef­fort.

The past few days in Kab­ul have been filled with fear and un­cer­tain­ty.