Fleeing Afghanistan

As U.S. and NATO forces prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan, many are considering fleeing their homeland. This is a story of one who tried but did not make it.

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Officials at Kabul International Airport open a shipping container that holds the body of Javed Ahmadi, who died when a fishing boat he was riding on sank in the Aegean Sea.

Zalmai / For The Washington Post

Female relatives grieve and pray over the Ahmadi’s body at a mosque in Kabul. Ahmadi, 19, died while he was trying to join his cousin in Sweden. Zia Ahmadi, who fled Afghanistan in 1997, promised Javed Ahmadi a place in his home.

Zalmai / For The Washington Post

Services are held at the Kabul mosque over Ahmadi’s body, which is wrapped prayer shawls and carpets. Ahmadi paid a smuggler $15,000 to get him out of Afghanistan after a group of men, whom he believed to be insurgents, attempted to kidnap him.

Zalmai / For The Washington Post

Ahmadi’s wife carries their 8-month-old daughter outside the mosque. Ahmadi had planned to have his wife and child follow him to Sweden once he was settled.

Zalmai / For The Washington Post

Ahmadi’s father, Mohammed, center, is consumed with grief at his son’s services. Ahmadi’s relatives assume he was targeted by the kidnappers because his father worked for an American contractor.

Zalmai / For The Washington Post

Family members ride in the hearse carrying Ahmadi’s body. Ahmadi knew the 3,500-mile trip would be treacherous, especially the Aegean Sea crossing. Two month earlier, about 60 Afghans died when their boat capsized on the Aegean. Before his boat left its harbor, Ahmadi called his father and asked, “Please pray for my safe arrival.”

Zalmai / For The Washington Post

Ahmadi’s youngest sister said goodbye before his burial. “Bury me with him,” she screamed, as did his wife.

Zalmai / For The Washington Post

Ahmadi’s family pauses on their way to the family graveyard, located high in the mountains. Many of them face a similar choice to Ahmadi, as they decide whether to flee Afghanistan ahead of next year’s scheduled withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops.

Zalmai / For The Washington Post

Ahmadi’s body is carried to the family graveyard. As thousands of Afghans flee their homeland ahead of the scheduled 2014 withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops, hundreds have died in their journeys. So many, in fact, that the Afghan government has run public service announcements warning of the perils.

Zalmai / For The Washington Post

Ahmadi’s funeral procession makes it way up the mountain. Last year, at least 50,000 Afghans fled to Europe and Australia, more than twice as many as the previous year, according to the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation. With U.S. and many other foreign visas nearly impossible to obtain, the majority of those hired human smugglers, adding to the danger.

Zalmai / For The Washington Post

A relative holds a photograph of Ahmadi.

Zalmai / For The Washington Post

Ahmadi’s father, Mohammed, is consoled at his son’s grave. Now that his son is buried, Mohammed has to choose whether to try to make the same trip his son did.

Zalmai / For The Washington Post

Relatives touch the ground in their last act of saying goodbye to Ahmadi.

Zalmai / For The Washington Post

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