The Photo

This drawing was born from the memories that remained imprinted in my son’s mind. The image perfectly represents the trauma he suffered during the evacuation. I took the photo while my eldest son was sleeping on the drawing of the Kabul airport during the evacuation, which remained his recurring nightmare for a long time. We spent days and nights at the Kabul airport without food, water, or a place to sit. I had only a bag with a few diapers and the hospital documents. I held my little son around my waist with a scarf because my legs could no longer take the strain. He was purple with fever, his throat was dry, while my eldest son, only six years old, tried to be as strong as a man to help me.

We were trapped: behind us the Taliban, in front of us the foreign soldiers. Amid the chaos, American soldiers fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. A tear gas canister landed right on my eldest son’s feet; his legs burned, and everything around him turned red, like in a horror movie. We couldn’t see anything. I screamed at Ali to hold on to my skirt, while he cried, “Mommy, I’m burning!” Shortly afterward, they threw freezing water at us from fire hoses. My youngest son stopped breathing from the shock; I feared I’d lost him. We even spent a day and a night in the sewer drain, until the Italian soldiers spotted us and saved us. I’ll never forget those scenes.