Name: Liyaqat Ali Sultani

Profile: Hazara refugee from Afghanistan, living in Indonesia.

Advantages: UN-certified, excellent English skills, mechanic.

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

Canadian contact: Stephen Watt

Liyaqat, a school student was captured by the Taliban because he was passionate about learning English and he had some English books with himself. He was lucky that he could escape from there to Indonesia and saved his life.

While living without his basic human rights, he has been dreaming of becoming a mechanic one day. His hope now is to find a group of five Canadian friends who can help him start his life again in Canada.

His Story

Liyaqat was born in January 1998, in Jaghori district in Ghazni province in Afghanistan. He was a school student and he used to help his father at their bookstore as well.

The Hazara people of the region have long been targets of persecution and massacres because of their culture, religion, and love for education. During his school holidays, Liyaqat went to Kabul to attend tuition classes. On April 9, 2014, he was returning from Kabul to his village by taxi, and he was taking some English books, certificates and some DVDs with himself from Ghazni for the bookstore. When he reached a place called Dasht-e-Qarabagh, the Taliban intercepted the car and found the English books and certificates.

“Finding the English books and other documents, the Taliban got very angry. They took me and one other passenger to a village where they imprisoned both of us inside a house.”

Fortunately, Liyaqat escaped from that house and hid in a desert. In the morning, he reached a road and went to Ghazni by car where he stayed in the hotel of his father’s friend.

The Way to Indonesia

After Liyaqat contacted his father and shared everything with him, his father told the hotel owner (his friend) to send Liyaqat to Kabul. In Kabul, his father sent some money to his cousin who then arranged for a people smuggler to send Liyaqat to a safe country. On June 1, 2014, he flew from Kabul to New Delhi, India and stayed there for 8 days. Then he went to Malaysia by plane and then on to Indonesia by boat in June 2014.

Detention Centre

After arriving in Jakarta, Liyaqat registered himself with the UNHCR on June 23, 2014. Due to not having the right to work or way to support himself in Indonesia, he went to Pekanbaru Immigration Centre to ask for assistance and he waited there for 5 months.

“It was very hard. I waited and slept under the rain and sun for months.”

On October 31, 2014, he was transferred to a detention centre in Pontianak.

The detention centre was overcrowded and refugees did not have access to clean water, proper food and medical care.

“Sometimes we did not have water to take bath, so we used to take shower in the rain.”

Despite such difficulties, he learned English and the Indonesian language and spent his time watching mechanical videos on YouTube.

His Hopes

Finally, on March 13, 2018, he received his freedom and was transferred to a community house in Tanjung Pinang where he joined a mechanical class and successfully received its certificate.

As a refugee, Liyaqat cannot work, get proper education and travel to another city. On the other hand, his family is left in Afghanistan where the Hazara people are being massacred daily.

“I hope to resettle in a country like Canada where I can work as a mechanic which I love and rescue my family from Afghanistan one day.”

There is a way!

There is a way. Since Liyaqat 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.

If you would like to sponsor him – 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 Liyaqat directly on Facebook.

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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