Where should Hazaras go?

by MOHAMMED HANIF

2012 was a bad year for the Hazara community in southern Pakistan. The community had been devastated by a series of targeted killings and suicide attacks. Even their future protectors weren’t safe. Police cadets belonging to the Hazara community had been targeted and killed, mid-ranking police officers belonging to the community had been assassinated.

That year I interviewed a leader of the Hazara Shia community in Quetta about the future prospects for the Hazaras. Abdul Qayyam Changezi was weary of attending funerals of his loved ones. It’s a small community concentrated in parts of Quetta. So chances were that, whenever someone got killed, he either knew them or their family. Changezi had a desperate solution to save his people.

“It’s quite obvious that the government and security agencies are either not interested in protecting us, or are unable to do so,” he spoke in measured sentences without anger, as if trying to argue his way out of a mass murder. “The government should sell everything we own. Our houses, our businesses, the furniture in our houses, our pots and pans, every single thing. With that money they should buy a large ship and put all of us on that ship and push us out into the open sea. Surely there is one country somewhere out there in the world that will take us.”

The ship of Changezi’s imagination already existed and was plying its human cargo in the rough seawaters between Indonesia and Australia.

Since 2008, when the attacks against the Hazara community increased, Hazaras had been selling off their houses and businesses in search of that mythical ship. Many ended up in Malaysia and Indonesia from where they could pay four to six thousand US dollars to get on a boat that would take them to places such as Australia and New Zealand. The journey could last 50 to 60 hours and, in the words of one Hazara who attempted the journey more than six times, you either reached the promised land or became fish fodder.

The Hazaras continue to be under relentless assault in Pakistan but face desperation and danger even after fleeing as refugees. Mohammed Hanif looks at the choices the community faces

The worse was yet to come.

Dawn for more

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