Name: Farhad Haidari

Profile: Hazara refugee from Afghanistan, living in Indonesia.

Advantages: UN-certified, good English skills, experienced tile worker, calligrapher and construction worker, FULLY FUNDED.

Risk: At risk of being tortured and killed by the Taliban if returned home.

Canadian contact: Stephen Watt

Farhad was a taxi driver. After his passenger was captured by some Pashtun men who were members of the Taliban Farhad escaped from them but they had already recognized Farhad and started searching for him. He luckily fled to Indonesia by boat in 2014.

Despite spending more than 3 years inside a detention centre, Farhad spent his time learning languages, drawing and doing exercise. He hopes now to find a group of friends who can bring him to Canada where he can work, support his family and meet them one day.

His Early Life

Farhad was born in 1994 in a village of the Jaghori district in Ghazni province in Afghanistan.

He was 13 years old when his father passed away. Due to financial problems, his mother sent him to Iran with some relatives illegally to find work and support his family. In Iran, he worked as a constructor, driver and in a stone company for 7 years. Due to not having legal status in Iran, he was deported back to Afghanistan by Iranian police in 2014.

After arriving in Jaghori, Farhad bought a car with the money he had worked in Iran and started working as a taxi driver there.

The Hazara people of the region have long been targets of persecution and massacres because of their culture, religion, and love for education. One day in October 2014, he took a passenger from Ghujur Jaghori and was on his way to Qarabagh. On the way, the passenger whose name was Dawlat told Farhad to wait beside a fort in Pai-e-Qol, and he said that he would come back soon.

The Incident

After a few minutes, Farhad heard shouts and saw Dawlat running away from the fort, and then Dawlat was captured by some Pashtun men near a door.

“I was very scared and did not know what was happening. My passenger Dawlat, looked at me and told me to escape from there.”

While escaping, the Pashtun men fired on Farhad’s car. Luckily, he was not hit and escaped from there.

When Farhad reached his village, he went to Dawlat’s home and told everything to his family. Dawlat’s brother told Farhad that Dawlat was the business partner of a Pashtun man, and he fell in love with his partner’s daughter. Dawlat used to tell his family members that he would escape with that girl at any cost. Dawlat’s brother also told Farhad to escape from there as soon as possible because the girl’s father was a member of the Taliban and he had seen Farhad and his car while escaping from there, so he would come for him to kill him any time soon.

After Farhad came to his home, he told his mother what had happened.

“My mother was very afraid and she told me to leave home and escape to Kabul immediately.”

After He Escaped

Farhad escaped to Kabul hiddenly and contacted his mother from there. His mother told him that the Taliban had come to his home to capture him, but when they did not find Farhad there, they beat his family members badly and took his car with themselves.

Farhad also came to know from his mother that elders of the village gathered and decided to go to Pashtun man’s home to release Dawlat, but they found his dead body there. The Pashtun man also had threatened the elders to bring him Farhad because he thought that Farhad had helped Dawlat in the plan of escaping with his daughter.

“My mother told me to leave my country because I was no longer safe there.”

Journey to Indonesia

In Kabul, Farhad arranged for a people smuggler who took 7000 US dollars to take him to Indonesia. After his travel documents were arranged by the people smuggler, Farhad flew to New Delhi, India on October 21, 2014 and stayed there for 5 days. Then he flew to Malaysia where he stayed for 6 days. From there, he went to Pekanbaru, Indonesia by boat.

Life in the Detention Centre

On November 8, 2014, he arrived in Jakarta. With no right to work or way to support himself in Indonesia, Farhad went to Balikpapan Immigration Centre to ask for assistance. In 2015, he was transferred to a detention centre in Balikpapan where he got registered with the UNHCR as well.

“Life in the detention centre was very tough for me and other refugees. The doors were closed on us and in 41 months, I was allowed to go outside just 3 times.”

Farhad kept himself busy doing exercise, playing football and learning English and drawing in the detention centre.

On May 31, 2018, he was released from the detention centre and was transferred to a community house in Tanjung Pinang.

Last Word

Farhad is always optimistic and he believes that he will find kind and generous friends who can bring him to Canada where he can finally meet his mother and sister whom he has not seen for 8 years.

Farhad is officially certified as a refugee by the UNHCR – unlike the vast majority of the world’s refugees – he qualifies for Canada’s private sponsorship program, another good thing about Farhad is that he is FULLY FUNDED

If you would like to sponsor Farhad – or if you’re just interested in helping to bring him here – please contact his friend Stephen Watt on Facebook.

You can also reach out to Farhad directly on Facebook – or by WhatsApp: +6283188628736

Reach out and discover how wonderful it is to privately sponsor a good person to start a new life – with your help – in Canada!

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