In 1992, when I was 10 years old, thousands of rockets were fired into Kabul. It started before the spring solstice, when we celebrated Persian new year, and carried on into winter. The siege forced my family to flee our home, never to return. We had hoped the fighting in Afghanistan would stop in 1989, after Soviet forces withdrew from their failed invasion. But our hope disappeared as US-funded mujahideen started fighting one another, bombarding Kabul in an attempt to seize control of the capital.
I was living with my family in the north-west part of the city, in a house with fading yellow paint on its outside walls. A red iron door with loud creaking hinges opened on to the outside world. I used to run out into the street to play with the other children in our neighbourhood. But the siege changed everything. I remember this as the time when all the time I knew disappeared – when bedtime, schooltime, playtime and dinnertime all vanished.
