Rodaba Noori

“That time everyone, exactly that room, door was closed, and my mom just lost the key. And when my mom got the key, I just, everyone was like crying. And we told that mom, please open the door, because we were afraid of even if one of the shotguns, which are firing, is going to kill some of us by passing the window. And we just stayed that night, all in the home, in the room. We even didn’t eat anything, because we were so afraid. And that time we understood that everything we have done, and everything we have achieved, is finished. There is no more future in Afghanistan.”

My name is Rodaba Noori. I was born in Herat, a beautiful center of Afghan cultural heritage, in May 2021. I have two sisters and three brothers. Our mother is still with us, but our father passed away two years ago. I graduated from Malika-e-Jalali high school in Herat in December 2019. I was accepted into Herat University’s medical school in 2020. I escaped Afghanistan on September 2, 2021 after the Taliban took Kabul. The IsraAID team evacuated me, my 14-year-old brother, and 42 other people to Tajikistan. I moved to Abu Dhabi on September 6th. My mother and other siblings fled Afghanistan in October 2021 and went to Albania. I lived alone with my little brother for eight months in a refugee camp in Abu Dhabi. We finally got to Calgary, Canady on April 14 of this year. Now, I’m a permanent resident of Canada, and I’m surrounded by my entire family.