A FAMILY TORN APART  

Until Kabul’s fall, Arezo had been living in a two-bedroom home with her younger brother and parents in the Dasht-e-Barchi district. Her twin brother was living in Europe.  

Once an agricultural area, it’s home to a largely ethnic Hazara community, that has reportedly faced an intensifying cycle of assassinations and bombings in the years since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.  

But Arezo’s memories of the area are peaceful. The only girl in a middle-class Hazara family, she enjoyed shopping with friends, playing Candy Crush with her brother and drinking green tea with her mum.  

She and her father had a shared love of books. Arezo’s favourite is The Forty Rules of Love by Turkish author Eli Shafak. And her dad’s advice “to be a good human” is something she holds on to.  

They had a garden full of cherry and peach trees, grape vines and a vegetable patch. The streets outside their windows hummed as men, women and children walked by, going to work, school, running errands and talking with friends.  

Today, their house sits empty. Her parents and younger brother have moved to Europe to be with her twin brother. It gives Arezo comfort to know they’re safe, but as her appeals to the Associate Minister for Immigration to bring them here are repeatedly rejected, she struggles, not knowing when she’ll see them again.  

AREZO’S PLEAS

Arezo turned 16 a month after she arrived in Auckland. She remembers those early days as “quiet, raining, and cold” with the city still in winter and a Level 4 Lockdown to boot.  

But despite the eerily quiet city streets, she still hoped officials would grant her request to bring her parents here.  

From the beginning, she struggled without the family she’d left behind and with the memories she brought with her. Loud noises triggered a physical response, reminding her of gunfire.  

Her nights were sleepless, as she cried for her family and worried about them hiding in Kabul. 

As she saw other families arrive in October that year she sent a text to her legal advocate, asking her to plead her case in court.  

 She described how her separation from her family made it hard for her to enjoy the things she used to.  

Two years on and Arezo’s disappointed that officials continue to decline her requests. 

“I thought the Government would know that I need my family," she says. 

For now, she remains in the care of an Oranga Tamariki assigned foster mum. A stranger who in her parents’ absence has stepped in.  

Arezo says her foster mother has helped her adapt to New Zealand life, from simple things like crossing our kind of roads, to using a bus card, to the more complex issue of managing her own money.  

The young woman has in turn shared her Afghan culture, and introduced her to some of her favourite dishes, like mantu, a special Afghan dumpling. 

Despite her disappointment, when I first meet Arezo at the Humble Villager Café in Epsom, her first words are still of gratitude.  

“I received lots of kindness from New Zealand, I can go to school now. I have a house where I can live and be safe,” she says. 

She’s been granted permanent residency.  

All she wants now is for that gesture to be extended to her family, so she can share her discovery of fish and chips, take them to her favourite Auckland restaurants and enjoy picnics with them on the beach – a novelty for the family from a landlocked country.  

But so far, every bid Arezo’s legal team has made to bring them here has failed. The former Associate Minister of Immigration Phil Twyford declined to intervene. A request to his replacement, Rachel Brooking, was only made last week.  

Now she’s 18 she could apply for the Refugee Reunification Category Tier 1 – but she’d need to prove she could support her entire family for two years.  

As a part-time worker at Nando’s, that’s not possible right now. She could find a full-time job, but that would see her dreams of law-school on hold.   

“I have to choose being with my family, or following my dreams, that’s what scares me.” 

ESCAPING AFGHANISTAN  

Since 2021 official figures show more than 1.6 million Afghans have fled Afghanistan. The total number of Afghan refugees worldwide is now more than 8 million - the vast majority of those are in Iran and Pakistan.  

New Zealand welcomed 1729 as part of the Afghan resettlement programme which was established to assist those who’d helped the New Zealand Defence Force or other New Zealand government agencies in Afghanistan during our 20-year-deployment there.  

Information released under the Official Information Act shows among the hundreds that arrived 19 to 20 children were classified as unaccompanied (no adult relations) or separated minors (with adult relations, but not parents).  

The youngest of these, may have been younger than five when they arrived, the oldest turned 18 while still in MIQ. DNA testing and ID verification helped identify the parents of seven who in the chaos of the evacuation became separated and arrived on different planes.  

Arezo was one of thirteen placed under court guardianship till the age of 18.  

The arrival of these children is described in official documents as “rare”, and almost unprecedented for New Zealand, at a time when there was no immigration policy to support reuniting them with family.  

Recently the Refugee Family Support category was opened to the Afghan arrivals, but some families can’t meet all the requirements, and even if they do, typically there are more applications lodged than places available.

Immigration New Zealand has expressed concern that making allowances for any one of these children could create a precedent for the rest and see up to 112 additional minors brought in “not taking into account any further unaccompanied or separated minors” who might arrive.  

“There will need to be a balance struck between caring for the welfare of the children involved, whilst not incentivising the movement of unaccompanied minors”.  

Oranga Tamariki’s Paula Attrill (interviewed above) is the general manager responsible for international casework and adoption services. She has worked for Oranga Tamariki for 30 years.  

She says it’s the first time the organisation has been involved in a humanitarian response like this, where so many children arrived at such short notice.  

“The evacuation happened very quickly and there was a lot less known about family and family groups. 

“By the time families arrived here in New Zealand, it was in the middle of Covid... so that made for a complex situation to be managing.”  

And with no diplomatic presence in Afghanistan verifying their stories was a big challenge for immigration officials.  

In Arezo’s case officials raised questions over what they say are “inconsistencies” around her story of how she got here.  

Transcripts and correspondence 1News has obtained from her legal team show these centre around why a 15-year-old girl was home alone when Kabul fell.  

And how plausible was it that she could have travelled on her own to the airport, where she ran into her uncle by chance.  

Was he really her uncle? Arezo has agreed to DNA testing to verify their relationship – but that has not happened.  

THE CITY FELL SO FAST  

Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban was largely expected. But it was the speed that caught many in the country off guard.  

Initial intelligence reports had put the time it might take at just one to two years, but in reality it took less than two weeks.  

As the sun set over Kabul on August 15 it was all but over. The Afghan government was in disarray, the Taliban had taken control of the presidential palace, marking the end of a 20-year era of US presence in the country.  

That was the day Arezo was at home in the Dasht-e-Barchi district while the rest of her family travelled to a family wedding on the southern outskirts of Ghazni.  

She’d chosen to stay to study for her final year exams, and to tutor younger students in English.  

While her family knew the Taliban were pushing for ultimate control, it was still a distant prospect.  

“I did not think something serious was going to happen.” she says. “I just assured them I’d be safe.”  

So her parents agreed to leave her in Kabul, with their neighbours keeping a close eye on her.  

In a translated statement, her father Mohammad Nazif Nazari, says it wasn’t till they got to Ghazni that they saw the Taliban had entered Kabul.  

Fearful for the safety of his wife, and youngest son, they decided not to return. But with his mobile phone drained of battery, and no power in the city, he was unable to contact his daughter.  

Back in Kabul Arezo waited for four days, as the sound of fighting rocked the city.  

“The first night after the Taliban got the government, I was crying the whole night because I didn’t have my parents, and I was also hoping it was a bad dream,” she says.  

As a 15-year-old Hazara girl Arezo knew she was particularly vulnerable under the newly instated Taliban rule.  

Hazaras make up a minority group that has long faced discrimination within Afghanistan. They’ve often been a target of violence at the hands of the Taliban - a group that’s also well-known for stripping back women’s rights.  

“They are killing people, they are raping girls,” she says of the militant organisation. “I don’t have my family, but if they come here and take me…” 

With that prospect playing on her mind, and as fear gripped city residents of what was still to follow, Arezo made the decision to flee.  

With no clue as to when, or if her parents would ever return, she grabbed her passport, ID card, documents, water and bread. On her phone, she had photos of her parents, and brother’s identification.  

“I am alone, and it’s war and I had to leave for my survival. I couldn’t contact them and didn’t know where they were, and if they were okay, so I had to go for my own safety.” 

A BEACON OF HOPE  

Arezo joined thousands who pinned their hopes for freedom on Kabul’s international airport.  

Foreign news organisations for days shared images of the sheer masses clamouring at its gates in the days after Afghanistan’s fall.  

Former Attorney General of Afghanistan Zabihullah Karim Ullah says that as one of the last places not controlled by the Taliban, it became a beacon of hope for many who would still have remembered the previous era of Taliban rule.  

Established following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the group’s rule was characterised by a harsh interpretation of Islam. Women were banned from work, girls from school and punishment included beatings and public executions.  

“I believe people have that horrific picture of the situation in Afghanistan, and the moment they hear there’s planes at the airport, people just started walking.”  

It was these images shared widely on social media that compelled Arezo to try and make it to the airport too.  

“I was thinking, if I don’t get saved, I will probably die in Afghanistan. But if that’s coming, it’s better I go to the airport and attempt to save myself.”  

To avoid attention, she hid among other families going through the Taliban-manned checkpoints.  

“It was horrible, I’ve never seen the Taliban from close distance,” she says. “They didn’t recognise that I’m alone, but they were hitting people, and they were shooting.”  

It was at the airport that Arezo says she spotted her father’s brother, and his wife. They had visas for New Zealand.  

Officials accepted she was their niece and when the first military plane left Kabul, Arezo was on board.  

She says it’s hard to describe how she felt as the wheels left the tarmac.  

“I don’t know if there is a word for that emotion, when you are happy that you are going to be safe, but also so sad that you don’t have your family. You have lost everything in your life.”  

The Royal New Zealand Air Force C-130 Hercules flew three evacuation flights out of Kabul,with a total of 125 onboard, in August 2021.  

Two more were scheduled, but pulled back before an ISIS attack on the airport left 170 civilians and 13 US Military dead.  

More were assisted out by the Australian Defence Force, including around 291 New Zealand citizens, permanent residents and visa holders.  

Post mission reports provided by the New Zealand Defence Force show the task force unit had limited capabilities to track evacuees, there was no pre-prepared process and data needed to be manually loaded.  

There was also a language barrier; at one stage Google Translate was used to allow the documents to be read.  

Members connected to the Afghan community in New Zealand told 1 News that few questions were asked and they suspected many who weren’t strictly eligible for evacuation were able to board.   

THE IMMIGRATION BATTLE  

It wasn’t till Arezo was in Dubai, a stopover ahead of the final flight through to New Zealand, that officials raised concerns.

They noticed the young girl and her aunt and uncle were distant with each other and this led to worries that she was not related to them as initially claimed.  

By the time she arrived in New Zealand her uncle had told officials he had no plans to take care of her long-term, and Arezo also did not want to stay with him.  

Officials questioned her three times, once via phone in February last year, and twice more in May and July of the same year.  

She was put under the guardianship of the court, and she began her bid to bring her family in. 

But because there’s no policy to deal with children like her, it required ministerial intervention, which was ultimately declined, by the associate minister at the time.  

In a separate OIA filed by 1 News the minister’s office revealed another child, a boy, had also made a ministerial bid that didn’t proceed. 

Legally there is no requirement for the minister to disclose why the bids have been refused.  

But correspondence sent to Arezo’s legal team saw the minister describe her case as a “complex” one. He also indicated he was “satisfied” her well being was well cared for via Oranga Tamariki and the court.  

A report into Arezo’s case also cited “inconsistencies” and raised concerns that she’d been trafficked. There were also questions around a potential arranged marriage.  

And they reiterated concerns about how allowing her family here could set a precedent for the illegal movement of minors and the arrival of other refugees.  

Dr Rodney Harrison KC, who worked on Arezo’s legal case, says in his view she’s been treated unfairly.  

“There’s not a shred of evidence to suggest that she was trafficked. There was no one from her own family or Afghanistan to support her. If she’d been trafficked someone would have been meeting her at the New Zealand end, but absolutely nothing, that was a nonsensical allegation she was never allowed to correct.”  

And in response to 1 News' queries Immigration New Zealand Head of Refugee Quota Programmes Qemajl Murati confirmed there were concerns, but it "never concluded that Arezo was trafficked or used as a child anchor".

AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE  

Unless the associate minister for immigration does decide to step in, Arezo’s chances of bringing her family here to live remain slim.  

She could try and join them in Europe, but there’s no guarantees she’ll be granted a visa to do that. And it would mean starting all over again.  

While she waits, and hopes, Arezo stays connected to her family by nightly calls.  

It's no replacement for the real thing and her parents know her too well to be convinced by her efforts to maintain a happy front.  

“But they can read from my expression, from my facials, and they say; ‘why are you sad today?’.” 

A feeling she can’t shake, as she grapples with the prospect of a future away from them.  

“I would have a very lonely and hard life if my parents were not here.”