Name: Izzat Ullah Izzat

Profile: Hazara refugee from Afghanistan, living in Indonesia since 2013.

Advantages: UN-Certified, Fluent English skills, IELTS Certificate holder, experienced as a volunteer teacher.

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

Canadian contact: Stephen Watt

Izzat was only 5 years old when his father was killed by the Taliban while returning from Iran to Afghanistan. As a child, his family fled to Pakistan and he did whatever he could to take care of his mother there. In 2012, he returned to Afghanistan but his stay was short-lived, as radical local Mullahs and the Taliban threatened him and he was forced to flee to Indonesia.

He lived for months in a detention centre. Despite being miles away from his family and coping with health condition, he didn’t lose hope and engaged himself in teaching refugees and learning.

Izzat has found a group of kind friends who will help him come to Canada. They are now raising funds to support him during his first year in Canada. Please donate if you can and help change Izzat's life:

https://chuffed.org/project/welcome-izzat-ullah-home-to-canada

His Childhood

Izzat was born in August 1991, in a village of the Jaghori district in Ghazni province in Afghanistan.

In 1996, his father was murdered by the Taliban while he was returning from Iran after so many years of being away, and Izzat was just five years old at that time.

After the Taliban began tightening their grip by blocking the aids and food supplies by sieging Jaghori from all around and began killing Hazaras in any way possible.

Izzat and his family escaped from Jaghori to Pakistan with the help of his maternal uncle who was their guardian at that time.

“I still remember, how we fled in the darkness of night, with the cloud of fear tightening around our hearts.”

Life in Pakistan

In Pakistan, Izzat worked as a fruit and vegetable vendor. Also, he continued his basic education.

“Among all subjects, English was my favorite subject which I followed intensely and eagerly. To be honest, it was English that kept me acquiring education.”

After completing his 9^th grade, he left his school since he was the only breadwinner of his family.

Despite working, he continued his English language classes in private institutions and became an English teacher. In 2011, he was teaching English in Girl’s High School that was built for Afghan refugees in Quetta.

Unfortunately, by 2012, the number of target Killings and attacks on Hazaras in Quetta, Pakistan increased. Izzat was a prime target of target killers because his job as a vegetable vendor was to fetch fruits and vegetables from the wholesale market where other Hazara vegetable vendors were targeted and got killed in the same year.

“This was not the only incident transpired to vegetable vendors. The target killers kept targeting them many times.”

Considering the situation, his mom decided to return with her family to Afghanistan and start over, perhaps she thought that due to the presence of international forces, there was now peace in Afghanistan.

Back to Afghanistan

In May 2012, they returned to Jaghori, Afghanistan, and within a few months, Izzat started teaching only male students with limited resources. Everything seemed normal for the time being, but after he started teaching girls, some local hardline Mullahs openly came to oppose his initiative and jumped to his throat and kicked of publicly berating him.

“I continued teaching despite hard slurs and slights hurled at me from those religious extremists.”

A few months later, Izzat headed to Kabul for bringing books and other English-related supplies, and after he procured those needs, he straightway headed back to Jaghori while leaving those stuff with a minibus driver to deliver them. On the way, the Taliban stopped the minibus at their checkpoint. They discovered those stuff from the minibus and started torturing the driver to expose the owner of those stuff. He had no way but to tell them Izzat’s name and show them his picture and details.

On the other hand, hearing that Izzat was planning Co-ed classes for a higher level of English which consisted of adult male and female students, local hardliners mustered their anger and provoked locals to attack Izzat. As a result, his institution was mobbed, classes windows were broken, carpets were torn, and mobs broke into his office.

“Also, they rummaged through my stuff, took my laptop, markers, books, and other stuff, and left the place in total wreck.

Their goons were crazily looking after me, so my uncle forced me to flee before they could get their hands on me.”

Izzat was yet to face the most frightening moments of his life. On escaping Jaghori, his car was stopped by the Taliban in a place called Tangi-Rasna. While searching Izzat and other passengers, they forced him to unlock his cell phone and found details about his being a teacher. Then, they blindfolded Izzat and drove him to an unknown place. Unbelievably, he saw many other Hazaras detained inside the room he was brought. Their crimes were being teacher, police or army personal, driver and government servants.

Later on, the Taliban took away the detainees except Izzat and two other Hazaras who were army soldiers from Jaghori.

“We knew that we were not going to survive and they would definitely kill us, so we had to try to escape.”

They untied each other’s hands, and one of them moved to the other side of the room which was filled with dried fodders from bottom to top. He started digging into the fodders until the top mound came down. There appeared a window guarded with pieces of wood.

“Upon removing those pieces of wood, and while huffing and puffing out of fear of being caught, we in turn and with much effort, slithered out of the window. We kept running for a few hours, then I saw headlights flashing bright and taillights red.

On the highway, I lost the other two guys. A sedan car stopped by and asked me if I was going to Kabul and I said “Yes”.”

Journey to Indonesia

On June 21, 2013 Izzat entered Pakistan through Jalalabad. In Pakistan, he stayed for a month in the capital, and then he flew to Bangkok through Abu Dhabi on July 23, 2013. The smuggler kept him in Bangkok for another two months. On September 23, 2013 he was smuggled into Malaysia where he stayed for a month and a few days. After a dangerous boat journey, he arrived in Indonesia on November 30, 2013. A further 24 hours excruciating car journey took him from Medan to Jambi, a city in east Sumatra of Indonesia. From there, I flew to Jakarta, Indonesia.

“Being in Indonesia, I was finally able to breathe in peace and without any fear of being caught by the Taliban.”

Life in Limbo

On December 2, 2013 Izzat registered himself at the UNHCR office in Jakarta. He stayed for over 4 months in Cisarua, Bogor. After his savings were finished, he decided to present himself to the immigration office of Makassar on April 08, 2014 to ask for assistance. And it was not a welcoming reception:

“There were some officers who strip-searched us not for security reasons but for money. The way they behaved was inhuman, and there were signs of smugness on their faces and intention of humiliation in their hearts.”

In The Detention Centre

After 45 days of living under the open sky, under the hot sun and heavy rains in the yard of the main immigration office, Izzat and some other refugees were finally transferred into a full detention centre with heavy metal doors and high walls topped with barbed wires. The detention centre was badly ventilated, and the residents were kept prisoner, trapped inside a building without proper food, water and proper medical care.

After a few months, they were shifted into makeshift rooms with open space.

On one occasion, a friend of Izzat who is a refugee and lives in Makassar, was taken outside and beaten badly, in fact, one of the officials wanted to stab him with a knife.

“In the meantime, the other official warded off the knife strike which ultimately hit my friend under his chin with the handle end of the knife and carved a big scar. That was so terrifying.”

Despite facing such difficulties, Izzat started learning math, biology, physics and chemistry from voluntary teachers.

He knew, if he didn’t have regular activities, he would be depressed. In his free time, he read English Newspapers provided by IOM and spent hours increasing the range of English vocabularies.

“Needless to say, I did teach English to my fellows and assisted them whenever they needed me as a translator.”

After a year, Izzat was interviewed by the UNHCR and got his refugee status in 2015. He thought that the end to dark days in his life was surefire.

Freedom

After living in the detention centre for 21 months, Izzat was got his freedom and was transferred to a community house in Makassar in February 2016. Since then, he had been teaching English voluntarily to refugees from all backgrounds till 2020.

“I believe, there is no better service to humanity than educating them and enabling them to communicate with others without the need to ask for a translator. I feel proud when I see my students thrive and interact with foreigners in English.”

His Life Now

Since the closure of schools due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Izzat has been bracing for IELTS and TOEFL tests. Besides, he has vowed to himself that he will read three books a month to keep himself motivated.

“As soon as Covid-19 restrictions are lifted, I will dive back at teaching refugees again because I fully understand that refugees are considerably susceptible to their time being wasted.”

The Last Word

As a UNHCR refugee, Izzat is eligible for Canada’s private sponsorship program. He needs a group of five Canadian friends to support him.

I know, we are not entitled and officially allowed to get proper education here, so I take it upon myself as a responsibility to educate my fellow refugees in whatever capacity I can.

To help support Izzat as a sponsor, please contact Stephen Watt on Facebook.

You can also reach out to Izzat directly on Facebook.

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

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