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Amanpour
Interview with U.N. Nepal Regional Coordinator Lila Pieters Yahia; Interview with World Central Kitchen Response Director John Torpey; Interview with "Postcode Ukraine: Diary of A Volunteer" Creator Mark Neville; Interview with "Postcode Ukraine: Diary of a Volunteer" Guest Curator Andrey Kurkov, Interview with Afghan Refugee and Catholic Charites USA Migration and Refugee Services Case Manager Mursal Rahim. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired August 31, 2026 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00]
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
The search for survivors in Nepal becomes more desperate by the hour, as days after a devastating flash flood, thousands of people are still
missing. We'll hear from families looking for loved ones, and from the United Nations and World Central Kitchen about eight efforts in the flood
zone.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It was impossible to walk because the wall of fire would have engulfed us, so we crawled on our
knees.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: As Russia hits Ukraine with its deadliest strike this year, a new exhibition is chronicling the everyday heroism of Ukrainians in all
walks of life, from soldiers through to children. Photographer Mark Neville and Ukrainian novelist and guest curator Andrey Kurkov join me to discuss
the project.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MUSRAL RAHIM, AFGHAN REFUGEE AND CASE MANAGER, MIGRATION AND REFUGEE SERVICES, CATHOLIC CHARITES USA: I never thought in ages that I would
leave my country like that, in a few hours, to leave everything behind. And I never thought my parents would do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: -- five years after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban to power, Afghan refugee Mursal Rahim speaks to
Hari Sreenivasan about how the U.S. invasion shaped her life and why she feels a duty to the women left behind.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
Five days after catastrophic flash floods swept along the Nepal-China border, the true extent of the devastation is only just becoming clear.
More than 4,000 people are now known to be missing, doubling estimates from just the weekend. Most of those are Nepali citizens, with roughly 600
foreigners also unaccounted for. More than 900 people have been confirmed dead.
Right now, a major push is underway to reach hundreds of workers who may be trapped alive in hydropower tunnels, which were submerged in thick mud
during the floods. Rescuers say time and conditions are against them, but they will keep going. Hanako Montgomery has more on these rescue efforts.
HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Nepal's mud-filled tunnels, desperate rescues are unfolding. Helicopters lifting survivors to
safety, some too weak to walk.
These tunnels were built to harness Nepal's rivers and fuel its booming hydropower industry. But now they're the focus of a frantic search. More
than 900 are still missing, many of them workers trapped inside when the flood hit.
BHAKTI RAM BOHARA, FLOOD SURVIVOR (through translator): Me and my brother- in-law were working in the same tunnel. I lost him. His wife is my sister and she is pregnant.
MONTGOMERY (voice-over): Amar Bista helped rescue these men. He and his team of volunteers trekked through dangerous terrain carrying medical
supplies. And with the help of the Nepali army, they flew to the worst hit areas, where they used picks and shovels to find signs of life. Sometimes
they found the dead instead.
The rescued men we spoke to say the tunnels were filled with bodies. The floods stripped them of everything they had, including their clothes.
AMAR BISTA, TOUR GUIDE AND VOLUNTEER: All the clothes they lost, all the - - whatever they have like they lost their phones. They lost their -- like everything they lost, you know.
MONTOMERY: What about -- what about these men? Have they lost family members?
BISTA: Yes, like they lost their nephew. They lost their uncles, brothers, you know, like cousins, you know.
MONTGOMERY: Everyone's lost someone.
BISTA: But company must move too.
MONTGOMERY (voice-over): Four days in the mountains have left Amar haunted by what he's seen.
BISTA: Like hundreds of people are there and no food. Everybody got diarrhea, you know, like nothing. So, you know, I didn't have a word for
that because they all are from my area, you know, like, I don't know. Nothing to tell because a lot of people here, they doesn't know the
reality. When I enter there, like the reality is different. We cannot tell, you know, the reality is way different.
[13:05:00]
MONTGOMERY (voice-over): For survivors, now comes the reckoning with what they endured and the enormity of what they've lost.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: Our thanks to Hanako Montgomery, just devastating. Well, countries and organizations around the world now have been rushing to send
rescue teams and humanitarian aid to Nepal, but conditions in the flood zone are making operations difficult. Unpredictable weather, flooded and
unstable terrain, and the complexities of working in a mountainous region are all adding challenges for the teams, not only in reaching the area, but
also in getting the aid to those who desperately need it.
With me now are two people who are working through these challenges in real time. John Torpey is response director at the World Central Kitchen, and
Lila Pieters Yahia is the U.N. regional coordinator for Nepal. Thank you both for joining me. Most importantly, thank you for everything that you
are doing following this devastating of development.
And as we heard there from Hanako's reporting, the reality is just becoming more and more clear of the enormous loss of life. Lila, let me start with
you. More than 900 people now dead, under 4,000 are missing. This report from the New York Times is still haunting some 24 hours after I read it.
The force of the deluge was such that nearly a dozen bodies were swept hundreds of miles away and found in India. What are you and your team
seeing on the ground right now?
LILA PIETERS YAHIA, REGIONAL COORDINATOR, U.N. NEPAL: Good evening. Thank you very much for inviting me. Maybe let me also share some -- another
figure. Over 11,300 people have been rescued. This is important, and those people need help, urgent help.
So, what we are seeing on the ground is unfortunately, yes, more dead people, more numbers, the number likely to continue to grow. But what we
are also saying is more rescue. And what we need to focus now is to continue, of course, the search and rescue, but we need to focus to
accelerate to provide the much-needed aid to those people.
GOLODRYGA: John --
YAHIA: And like you said, the terrain is difficult.
GOLODRYGA: And, John, it is striking that it's an aid worker who's seen this devastation that's sort of saying, let's focus on some of the positive
here. And that is the thousands who have been rescued, but they are not out of harm's way. They need help desperately. And that's where organizations
like yours comes in. How is the World Central Kitchen responding to help those who thankfully have been rescued but have lost everything else?
JOHN TORPEY, RESPONSE DIRECTOR, WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN: Yes, and I can say it's just been amazing to watch Nepal respond to this from the search and
rescue. You know, we're down in Nuwakot, and they have an airstrip, seven helicopters. They're flying helicopters nonstop. When they say 11,200
people, it's just an amazing feat, especially in the terrain that we're seeing right now. You can see people lined up on the fence, and every time
a helicopter lands, they're just hoping for good news. They're looking for a loved one coming off a chopper. It's really difficult to see.
We've been on the ground now for days. We've set up kitchens. We've been working with local restaurant partners. We are working with local
communities, local NGOs to help speed this process up. We've fed thousands of people already. We'll feed thousands more. In the area, in Nuwakot and
Bidur, where there's a lot of the evacuees are being taken to, making sure that they're taken care of, but we need to do more.
You have to remember that, I can't even remember the number, 16 to 20 bridges have been just completely devastated from the origination of the
floods down to the area in Bidur and Nuwakot, where we can get to. There's still a lot of people in some of these areas who were not evacuated. How
are we helping them? We need to be looking at how we're continuing to push where these people are, get to them --
GOLODRYGA: I believe -- John, are you still with us?
TORPEY: The Nepal Scouts. They did an eight-hour journey yesterday.
[13:10:00]
GOLODRYGA: John, sorry about that. Your connection appears to be coming in and out. Lila, let me turn to you. You're coordinating behind a government-
led response. I want our viewers to hear some of the desperation from residents who are affected by this flooding.
YAHIA: OK, like John told you, I think what's impressive is to see this very young and new government, who is totally in control and coordinating
and leading this operation. It's really amazing. When I went on the ground, this is what I saw. I saw extremely well-organized dispatching of supplies.
I saw the rescue team. I saw they have established 12 centers where all those rescue people are being received. They are being fed. They are being
registered.
But what's needed most, and we need to accelerate really over the next five, six days, is we need really to accelerate. This is what United
Nations is doing, supporting the government in the area of water sanitation and hygiene. UNICEF has deployed teams and is working day and night with
the government teams to accelerate that. We need to also accelerate the provision of shelter. And this is what U.N. is doing, supporting the
government.
WFP is scaling up all the logistics support, but also distributing and supporting food distribution. We are looking into one of the big risks that
we're going to have to look at is any risk of communicable diseases due to the, you know, remains, human remains, but also to a lot of livestock,
which is dead. So, we are doing all that.
There is also a lot of work which needs to be done in terms of supporting family. We have numbers of children that have been separated, so Save the
Children and UNICEF are looking at how to do family reunification. We are also -- there's an urgent need for supporting the entire population. You
know, when I was in the field, what shocked me the most is all those people, the sadness on the people, in the face of the people. They were
desperate. So, they need support, but they also need a lot of mental health care.
GOLODRYGA: Of course. And this is going to be something that they are going to be dealing with, those who have been able to survive the initial
onslaught here that they're going to be dealing with for the rest of their lives. I want to play, Lila, I wanted to play earlier for you, sound, from
a resident who just discusses some of this, the fact that she has lost everything in her life and is quite helpless right now. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEENA GUPTA, TRISHULI RESIDENT (through translator): What will we do now? Nothing is left. We are living in the municipality building. We're sleeping
there. Now, what we will do, what not to do, we are totally at a loss. We don't know what we will do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Meena, Lila, is just one of thousands, and I'm wondering how the U.N. and your colleagues are able to calibrate the amount of aid that
is needed because the number of missing continues to fluctuate quite drastically.
And my colleague, Anderson Cooper, was saying one of the reasons earlier this morning for that number fluctuation is that some people waited, hoping
perhaps that their loved ones in the first few days would be reunited. And it was only after day three or four or five that they finally came to terms
with the fact that they are likely missing as well.
YAHIA: Yes. I think so, because, you know, the government has mobilized 20,000 people, police, the army, the armed forces. I mean, an entire,
entire country has been mobilized to try to, you know, and focus on search and rescue. So, this gave a lot of hope. And this is what you want. Of
course, you want that. So, that initial response was so important. And you should not -- you know, it's normal that you hope.
So, I think a lot of people would -- you know, just the only thing -- you know, we have when you are facing this situation is hope. And today, I
think they're realizing more and more. Last week, so I was there on Friday, and a lot of people were coming into terms that, you know, they will not
find their loved ones. So, this is what you see increasingly. And this is why mental health care support is going to be needed. But also like this
person was reporting, they've lost everything.
You know, when I was there, I had a group of people, you know, holding my hand telling me, please, please, please help. And I explained to them that
help is arriving, that it would, it would take some time, they need to have faith. And the help will reach.
[13:15:00]
So, people were asking -- you know, explaining to me, they lost everything, their papers, their livelihood. So, the government has also started giving
a cash transfer to enable for people who are living, you know, in different parts of the 17 municipality, we are talking about 17 municipalities in the
world. And they're giving a cash transfer to enable for people who are 17 different municipalities which have been affected. And in some of them, we
still have school. So, the government has really started providing also cash transfer to enable those people to go and buy things that they need.
So, but today, what's most urgent, as I was saying is, is really to make sure water is clean, providing information on hygiene, building, rebuilding
sanitation, which I'm missing providing shelter. And also, my colleagues are really working, working with the government doing assessment and
identifying the need.
Then after you're going to need to provide all that to deliver. The key challenge we have is 40 kilometers of road destroyed, 35 bridges gone. And
so, you know, it's -- is to bring the aid and after is to bring it to the epicenter to all among all those 17 municipality where there's no more
access. The only access today is by helicopter.
So, the government is working on opening roads. But you know, as you said earlier, this is the Himalayas. The terrain is extremely, extremely
difficult. But we have to remember Nepalese are great hikers.
GOLODRYGA: They're great hikers, but it is not a resource rich country. So, it is desperately in need of aid from the U.N. and any other country
that is providing it now.
John, you've worked in various disaster zones around the world. We've talked about the fact that there are constraints and actually getting to
these locations. Dozens of bridges have been wiped out structurally. What's so different about trying to get to these sites in the Himalayas? It's
monsoon season. You've got a border running through the disaster zone here.
TORPEY: Yes. And weather plays a big role. You know, as my colleague said, there's the bridges are out. These are the lifelines for these communities.
Really, the only way to get there is with helicopters. But she did mention a very important thing, something that we've been working on.
There's a lot of hikers here, and we're starting to reach out to guides. We're starting to reach out to scouts. We're starting to reach out to
people that could potentially bring things in. If we can get them to certain places, how do we how do we start to telescope that aid? We're
hitting --
GOLODRYGA: Yes. Unfortunately, our connection --
TORPEY: -- is moving along with each other.
GOLODRYGA: Unfortunately, our connection with you, John, is not very stable. That is understandable. I don't want to keep you both any longer
than is needed, given all of the important work you're doing. I just think of what that guy told my colleague, Hanako Montgomery, while breaking down,
saying people don't even know the reality of what has happened to that community.
So, we are grateful for organizations like yours that continues to provide resources, aid to those who need it most right now. John Torpey and Leila
Pieters Yahia, thank you for joining the show.
And do stay with CNN. We'll be right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:20:00]
GOLODRYGA: We turn now to Ukraine, where at least 38 people were killed over the weekend after an ammunition depot in the Kyiv region was struck by
a Russian drone triggering multiple blasts and a wall of fire. Now, this comes amid near daily attacks from Moscow, which many Ukrainians have sadly
gotten used to. After nearly five years of this war, their lives have drastically changed.
Kyiv-based British photographer Mark Neville has been documenting it closely. And now, as part of his ongoing project called "Postcode Ukraine,
Diary of a Volunteer," he's putting those human stories front and center at his fundraising exhibition in Los Angeles, California. All proceeds will go
to his charity, which provides grants to urgent local aid relief across Ukraine.
Mark Neville is joining me now with award-winning Ukrainian author and a guest curator of this exhibit, Andrey Kurkov. Welcome, both of you.
Congratulations on this exhibit, Mark, and for all of the incredible work that you've documented over the last several years.
As we noted, this fundraising exhibition is the first major presentation of the photographs that you've documented and taken since the larger-scale
invasion began. Tell us briefly what this means for you now to open this exhibit.
MARK NEVILLE, CREATOR, "POSTCODE UKRAINE: DIARY OF A VOLUNTEER": It's extremely emotional. I mean, I've been living along with Andrey in Ukraine
for the past five years and dealing with the impact of these now daily explosions. And it's very strange, but your nervous system actually becomes
used to it.
So, in a weird way, I have an advantage over people in the West who I'm sure the war is going to come to the West in a more direct way. I'm very
sad to say, but I think it will. And you'll have to get used to war in this sense as well, I think, as Ukrainians are doing.
It's extremely important to recognize Ukrainians as people and not just headlines. And I think we're all kind of, in the West especially, we can't
think or feel anything anymore about Ukraine because we were bombarded with an online tsunami of images. And the whole point of doing this book, "Diary
of a Volunteer," and doing this exhibition at Westwood Contemporary, is to take that material and those stories and those real people offline and
forge some kind of real connection between Western audiences that break through compassion fatigue.
And that's also been the premise of our work at "Postcode Ukraine," the charity that I co-founded. We're a very small team, but we're extremely
effective. And we not only deliver aid directly ourselves, and I document it as we go, but we also give grants. We're a charity of charities, if you
like. We give grants to other charities, small charities we see are doing incredibly important work. And that ranges from housing for IDPs, rescuing
animals, evacuating people. And the need is so urgent.
And, you know, I moved to Ukraine six years ago because I love the country. And anybody who visits it falls in love with it. And it has something that
we don't have in the West. We have to protect it. And we especially have to protect it because these people are fighting to defend Western democracy.
It's that simple.
GOLODRYGA: I think there's so much to touch on there that you just laid out this argument that this war is not just between Ukraine and Russia, but
it is between Putin's Russia and the West, and that he won't stop at Ukraine's borders. That is a fear that not only you, but many experts have
had for a number of years now, especially if Russia's back is against the wall, that Moldova, other European countries, neighboring countries, the
Baltic countries, Poland, they are all very concerned about what this means for them and for the NATO alliance.
And, Andrey, I want to bring you in on this point as well because we constantly hear from President Trump. But many others in the U.S. that this
isn't our war. It's thousands of miles away. There's a sea between us
[13:25:00]
And opening this exhibit even further away in California, I think, makes the point that Mark has just made about the significance and how important
it is for people to see that this is not just a war between two countries, but perhaps between two different societies and one that we would like to
still uphold here in the West.
When you were invited, Andrey, as a curator, what did that mean for you? What was your initial reaction?
ANDREY KURKOV, GUEST CURATOR, "POSTCODE UKRAINE: DIARY OF A VOLUNTEER": Well, I was positive from the very beginning because I am ready to do
anything to keep Ukraine in the focus of international attention. I write every day about what is happening here. I read books written by others
about Ukraine, and I give blurbs, and I write prefaces, and I go to the events. And I'm just back from Edinburgh Festival, where another book about
Ukrainian culture at war by Charlotte Higgins was launched, which is a great book about what is happening with Ukrainian culture under Russian
attacks.
GOLODRYGA: Mark, let's look at some of these photos, because you really make a case for an ethical role here in photography and telling the story
and capturing the narratives and the lives that have been impacted by this brutal war.
Let's pull up this image of a 14-year-old schoolgirl and volunteer baker in the Venetia region of Ukraine holding bread in a cardboard box. That caught
your eye. This was just before she went back to help her mother prepare bread for local territorial defense soldiers. Tell us what happened next,
Mark.
NEVILLE: Well, generally speaking, I see my role more as a kind of ethical -- searching for an ethical role for photography, in that I don't think
it's enough just to report or bear witness, although that's highly important. I think there's a responsibility and onus on the photographer or
the artist to also help in real terms. And that was the whole concept behind Postcode Ukraine that we co-founded with Bill and Tanya, to really
mesh the two. So, not only would we report on what was happening, but we'd also deliver aid to those who need it most.
Now, what's so wonderful about this exhibition that's going to happen is it's guest curated by people like this incredible author, Andrey, who we're
talking to today, but also Sir Stephen Fry, Prince Harry, Sharon Stone, Alicia Milano, Beth Greenacre, the former art consultant to David Bowie,
Kateryna Babkina, another incredible Ukrainian author, Oleksandra Matviichuk, the human rights lawyer who won a Nobel Peace Prize in Ukraine.
They've all selected work from the book and from the exhibition and written about it and told what it means to them. So, that particular image,
actually, Andrey wrote a stunning piece about the meaning of bread and how the absence of bread means the absence of people.
So, through this structure that one of our team at Postcode Ukraine initiated, of inviting guest curators, we're trying to give a more human
sense of, a more direct sense of what the war means for everyone I know. I mean, we're all traumatized in Ukraine. I can't put it any other way. It's
impossible to be there for five years and not be traumatized by what's happening. And these are our friends, our colleagues dying. These are our
communities.
And I have to say, when there's an explosion, it's not just a little puff of smoke in the background. The whole house shakes. And then there's
another explosion 20 minutes later. It's ba-boom, like that, you know. So, it really affects one's nervous system after a week, let alone five years.
GOLODRYGA: I'd like to get more of these photos up that our viewers can see. Let's pull that one up again of the 14-year-old schoolgirl holding the
bread that she and her mother prepared. Because, Andrey, as Mark noted, this resonated with you personally. We've heard for so long, those that
know the region, I'm from the former Soviet Union, I'm from Moldova, I know the food there very well and the significance of bread. And Ukraine,
because of this war, the whole world has realized the significance that it's the breadbasket of the world. This picture says so much.
KURKOV: You know, four years ago, there were two events -- two tragic events, actually, that are engraved in my memory now for all my life.
First, a bakery in a nearby town, Makariv, was hit by a missile in the morning when they were baking bread, and nine bakers were killed.
[13:30:00]
And this bread, it was my favorite Makarovskiy bread, Makarovskiy bread, or bread from Makariv town, which was on sale in the place in the village
Nazarivka (ph) in Brusyliv, where I have a summer house. And I used to buy it. Actually, since then, this bread is gone. I don't know if a new bakery
was rebuilt on the place of the old one, but we don't have this bread anymore.
And exactly one week later, a queue waiting for fresh bread delivery in front of the bread shop in Chernihiv was attacked with a drone or missile.
And again, several people were killed who were waiting to have warm, fresh, freshly-baked bread.
So, I mean, this war, actually, this aggression started not only against Ukrainians, it was against their habits, their ways of life, their values.
Because, you know, Ukraine survived artificial famine in 1932-'33, organized by Stalin, with 4 or 5 million people dying from hunger. So, I
mean, the attitude to bread in Ukraine historically is very different from the attitude to bread in Russia or in France or in Germany.
So, I mean, this war is also against culture of survival. Because even today, this is now harvesting time. I mean, the farmers in Kherson region
are harvesting wheat under permanent attacks of drones. And so, actually, I mean, Ukrainians, when they eat bread, they understand that this bread,
actually, has a taste of blood. And actually, I remember having a taste of blood when I heard first time the news about the bakery in Makariv hit by a
missile.
GOLODRYGA: There's no one who was really immune from this war, from bakers to soldiers to, sadly, children. I want to pull up a photo that you took,
Mark, outside the Bohdanivka School. This is a burnt-out school where you see children standing there in the charred-out remains. According to the
U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, 17 children were killed, 166 injured in July alone. What does this image mean to you, and who do
these children represent?
NEVILLE: Well, they're schoolchildren who attended Bohdanivka School, and this is their burnt-out school bus. And it's a clear evidence that
schoolchildren are and were deliberately targeted in this conflict. So, we're talking about genocide, actually. So, clearly, these children
survived. And, you know, I asked them to sit and stand around this charred school bus, almost like ghosts, as black-and-white figures who, you know,
they could have died, but they didn't. But, sadly, so many children have died.
And I wish the West would recognize this conflict for what it is. It's a genocide, pure and simple. As Andrey was saying, they want to erase
Ukraine's culture and everything that it means to be Ukrainian. I think, and I hope, through this exhibition, that we're going to be able to really
raise funds for those charities that are doing such important work, not just for Postcode Ukraine.
And because we're core-funded and we're actually working on the ground in Ukraine, I'm 99 percent of the time I live in Kyiv, it means that any
donations we receive go directly on aid or directly to the charities we fund. None of it goes on overheads, because our overheads are paid by our
brilliant visionary patron, Bill.
So, this is a way that people in America and all over the world can directly help. And they can directly donate or they can purchase one of my
photographs. Either way, the money's going directly to people like the children that you see in this burnt-out bus.
GOLODRYGA: Seeing these children brings back images, those haunting images, of the Mariupol Drama Theater that was struck, I think, in the
opening weeks of this larger-scale war. And they're written for anyone to see the words, deity (ph), children, written, and nonetheless
indiscriminate attacks. Here we see more of your images.
And, Mark, this is personal. You've lost friends as well. If we have the photo of Shura, who is wearing army fatigues, military fatigues, I believe,
in the picture, we can pull that up. There she is. If we have the photo of Shura, who is wearing army fatigues, military fatigues, I believe, in the
picture, we can pull that up. There she is. Tell us briefly about Shura.
[13:35:00]
KURKOV: She's a friend. She used to be a stylist. She was very well known in Ukraine as a brilliant fashion stylist. And when the war began, she
joined, back in 2014, she joined the Ukrainian army. And I photographed her three or four times during the full-scale invasion, so from 2022 to 2024.
And each time I photographed her in Kyiv, she came back from the front line, and I could see that she was deteriorating, that she was really
suffering. And nevertheless, she said, I just want to go back. I want to go back and fight with my brothers and sisters. And it was an incredible blow
when she died.
And unfortunately, she's not the only one. You know, I've lost many friends, as Andrey has in this conflict. It's continual. It affects
everyone, and we need to support.
GOLODRYGA: It is continual. I am confident that your work here and your dedication to Ukraine, Ukrainians, is very comforting for Andrey and other
Ukrainians there. Mark Neville, thank you for the work you continue to do. And we, as always, will continue to be covering this tragic war. "Postcode
Ukraine: Diary of a Volunteer" runs from September 10th through September 30th at the Venda Museum in Los Angeles.
And do stay with CNN. We'll be right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GOLODRYGA: Now, to Afghanistan, where earlier this month, the Taliban marked five years since regaining power. In this time, their repressive
regime has introduced more than 100 decrees stripping away rights from women and children, barring them from education, health services, and work.
Our next guest knows firsthand the impact of Taliban rule, like many others.
In 2021, Mursal Rahim was forced to flee her country for the United States at just a moment's notice. Rahim's story is featured in an upcoming book,
"The Last Free Women: A Daring Escape from Afghanistan and Coming of Age in America." And she joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss why her journey has
inspired her to speak out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Mursal Rahim, welcome to the program. You wrote an op-ed in the New York Times recently that was
titled "What America Owes to Afghan Women." In it, you describe a scene where you're walking across the stage to get your diploma from Cornell, and
you write, but as I teetered across the stage in high heels, the sad, hopeless faces of my girlfriends, who never made it out of Afghanistan,
flashed through my mind. This is the whiplash I live with now, highs of freedom and newfound opportunity punctured by lows of intense guilt. Can
you describe that whiplash a little bit more for our audience?
MUSRAL RAHIM, AFGHAN REFUGEE AND CASE MANAGER, MIGRATION AND REFUGEE SERVICES, CATHOLIC CHARITES USA: This feeling is not something new that
I'm feeling recently. It has been with me since I left Afghanistan for the past five years. And it gets more when I am feeling the highs of my life.
For example, graduation was the biggest moment that I was experiencing as someone who just came to this country as a refugee. And it was not any
university, it was an Ivy League. So, it was a huge accomplish for me.
[13:40:00]
And when I was feeling very happy, very proud, and I was looking at my parents face and all my friends face, how they are happy and proud. Looking
at me, I feel at the moment, I feel guilty as well of like, why the same girls as me with same ambition, and same hardworking are not experiencing
this back in Afghanistan.
Being at home, like your education and your career has been destroyed by Taliban. And the faces of my friends that are banned from school, that are
banned from education, always stays with me when I have any achievement, when I have achieved the goal that I set up for myself.
SREENIVASAN: You know, you describe in the piece that you wrote that Afghan women were, quote, "Perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of the U.S.
intervention." Kind of describe for me, if you can, what life before the American intervention, and then really after the American departure was
like.
RAHIM: So, I born in 1996. It is right when the Taliban took over Afghanistan for the first time. So, when I was, till I was five, the
Taliban was ruling the country. And when the Taliban was the country for the five years, it was the same situation. Women were not allowed to go to
school. Women were not allowed to get education.
And when the Taliban left, I was very late. I was seeing my dad's face, how happy he is to go and teach back in the university, since he was university
professor and university were banned for five years. And I saw my sister who was older than me. She was able to go back to school after five years
of pause. And when I saw my sister getting ready for school. And in Afghanistan, you have to be seven to go to school.
So, I was just like telling my parents, I also want to go to school. I want to go to first grade. I want to experience the school. And they took me to
school. And they were not taking me because I was very little for school. But I was like, no, I have this freedom. I want to use it. So, I went to
school after five years of being banned from education.
So, my class was something -- my classroom on school was some -- a place that was completely destroyed by Taliban. There were no wall, no chair, no
blackboard, nothing. And if you were lucky, so we could have find a piece of wood so we could sit on it. And I had classmates that are way older than
me because they were going to school after the pause of five years. Everyone was trying to get into school. Everyone was trying to get to
education -- get education. And even though we had very limited resources, I remember when I got to upper grades, I got -- when I was in seventh
grade, my school got attacked by Taliban.
So, it wasn't the perfect situation that we were experiencing for the past 20 years, but at least there was hope, but at least there were ambition of
the women and the women who were seeing that they had freedom and they have to use it.
SREENIVASAN: You know, the end of August now, when we're having this conversation, it's been five years since the Taliban took power again in
2021. And I want to take you back a bit, if I can. What do you remember about the day that you had to flee?
RAHIM: Sometimes I say, I remember that day, but I also don't remember that day because it was a very -- everything happened very sudden, very
sudden in a few hours. I remember that night, everything was perfect. I could see people on the street going to work, like a normal day. But we
knew that the Taliban are attacking other cities and the situation is getting worse. But deep down, we didn't believe that the Taliban might take
over Kabul because all the resources were in Kabul. The president was there. All the military was in Kabul.
And we didn't have even this thought that the Taliban might take Kabul. Before that day, the night we had this conversation, what we should do if
the Taliban took over the country? And we thought we have time to think about it. But unfortunately, it happened in 30 minutes that we received a
call from my brother that we have to leave immediately. The Taliban are taking over of the country -- the Kabul. And don't take anything with
yourself, just the backpack, so it will be easy for you to carry it. And take your important document or anything that you think that is important
for you to be with yours -- with you.
So, I had to -- I don't know how my parents exactly felt, because for them, it was 60, 70 years of life that they have to live behind. But for me, it
was my school diploma, my few headscarves, my -- one extra clothes, and then I had to fit it in that backpack. And then we had to leave the house
and get to airport. When we got to the airport, we saw the situation was like way worse than anyone could imagine. And everyone was rushing in the
airport to leave the country.
[13:45:00]
It wasn't long, and it was a very tough journey to leave Afghanistan, especially when you see -- it was unimaginable situation to be with. And I
never thought in ages that I will leave my country like that, in a few hours, to leave everything behind. And I never thought my parents would do
that. My parents left their siblings, their family, all their achievements. It was a tough moment.
SREENIVASAN: The United States and their allies evacuated officially about 124,000 people during those last few weeks of the war. But there were so
many other people that had worked with different allies, different U.S. agencies that were left behind. And I wonder, do you know people that were
left behind? What is their life like now?
RAHIM: I do actually know, especially when I'm working now with refugees and immigrants that left Afghanistan in 2021 and after that. So, I work
with a few clients that they left their family behind in Qatar, in UAE, and in other country that they are waiting to enter the United States.
What I'm hearing from them is they are living in uncertainty for five years. Recently, I talked with a client, and she was telling me that she
has a five-year-old son, and the son has been not able to see his father for five years. And sometimes when he sees his picture and when they do
video call or FaceTime, he doesn't recognize his father. And at the same time, she doesn't have green card to even to travel. So, it has -- it
caused a lot of family separation and pause to their life for five years.
SREENIVASAN: When you look at Afghanistan where it is today versus the opportunities that you had, Afghanistan is now the only country in the
world where girls are stopped from having an education past the sixth grade. Women are prohibited from most types of work. They face restrictions
on what they can do, where they can go in public life. And they are required, of course, to cover themselves at all times in public. When your
friends talk to you about this radical change that's happened, what comes up for them?
RAHIM: I talked last night with a friend that, how's your life going? And sometimes I don't want to even share with them how is my life going and how
I'm experiencing. So, my friend said the world only see that education is banned from us and we are being banned from public eyes.
And -- but most of the girls that she knows, they are experiencing depression, anxiety, because they haven't been able to go out. They haven't
been able to be themselves. And they haven't been able to work towards their dream that they had for many years. And she told me that we went to
school with the same situation, but now you're there to use that education that you got in the past one year. But here I am sitting at home doing
nothing.
And sometimes you feel like girls are trying to fight hard, trying to not lose hope. But when they see the world, how they ignored them and how no
one talks about them anymore. It's like we were the headline for the first year, for 2021. Any channel, if you look at it, they were Afghanistan.
Afghanistan was on the headline of the news.
But later on, the more situation got worse, and instead of being more on the headline we kind of -- they've forgotten about us and they don't --
they say, even if we speak up, we feel that our voice doesn't matter and nobody hears us. It's like we are using our voice, but if nobody hears us,
it's useless.
SREENIVASAN: Are there women who are still trying to find ways to learn, to organize, to figure out, or is it just so difficult that they don't
bother because they don't want to get in trouble?
RAHIM: One thing I love about Afghan women, they never give up. Even though the situation will get very hard, very tough, they will try another
way. They will stand up. They will try another way. I have friends, they are taking online classes. They are learning through YouTube. They are
learning through any tools that's available for them.
I remember a friend started learning math through Khan Academy, and I learned another friend learned painting through YouTube. I have friends
that are studying online and taking online classes in an online school that they provide them online education.
[13:50:00]
They are using any resources that are available for them, but nothing replaces the education that you get in the school.
SREENIVASAN: You work with Afghan refugees and immigrants to the United States here. You've been granted asylum. You're waiting for your green
card. And I wonder, what is it that Americans should know about the difficulties and challenges for refugees after they arrived here?
RAHIM: What I have been facing, and I faced also as an immigrant and as a refugee who left Afghanistan, in the beginning, the country was very
welcome to us. We were welcomed with open arms. We received many kindness from many people. But the more the years is passing by, the policies are
getting very stricter against us.
Our status would be on a pause for a few years. And even if that pause is happening, but at the same time, the policies suddenly change, and they
might really view your case. They might send you back to your country. You are physically safe in a new country that you thought that you would be in
that country forever, and you will build a new life from zero.
But mentally, you know that the situation might change anytime, and they might send you back to your country or any other country, and you might
start again from zero. So, it's uncertainty that most of them are living with. And as I said, they don't know what will happen for the rest of the
family -- for the rest of their family that left behind.
SREENIVASAN: Your agency is closing now. How come?
RAHIM: Unfortunately. It's one of other things that I say I really was passionate of working with refugees and immigrants, and because I came from
that background, and I totally understand them. But it was a little bit demotivating for me to see how there is zero support for us, for our
agency, for the work that we do. When they terminated us, it happened suddenly, all of a sudden, from middle of no year. And we were at least
expecting one more year, but then you told us that we didn't receive any funding. It's -- and we don't have any money to continue this program. And
I immediately thought about the client that I have, like how they might now navigate challenges without having a support or mentor.
SREENIVASAN: I want to ask, have you thought of living a quieter life? And by that, I mean, look, you wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, you're
having a conversation on an international program. Are you ever concerned that becoming this voice puts a bigger target on your back?
RAHIM: I thought about that, but at the same time, I'm someone, even when I came to this country, I always compare, I always say what if, and I
always say why I have this, but we didn't have this in Afghanistan. And I'm feeling that way, if I had chosen the quieter life, I might talk about
like, OK, I had the freedom, I could have a speak up about women in Afghanistan, I could have at least showed the world that what's happening
in Afghanistan, but I choose to not do it. And I choose to ignore what's happening. And it would not lead me to live in a quiet life mentally. Maybe
I would be quieter in the appearance, but in my mind, I will not be quiet.
SREENIVASAN: And I also wonder, when you have this conversation with me, when you have yourself out there like this, are you concerned that the
Trump administration might retaliate against you?
RAHIM: Of course, I am. Yes, but I don't want to, this fear to hold me back of speaking up about Afghanistan and the women. Because this is my
identity, this is where I'm coming from. And I have obligation for them, for the years that I lived and grew up there.
SREENIVASAN: Musral Rahim, thank you so much for your time.
RAHIM: Thank you so much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: And finally for us, tributes for the late, great Dolly Parton didn't stop over the weekend. Country musicians, including Dolly's own
niece, Jada Star, took to the stage at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, performing some of her greatest hits in tribute to the icon.
The dedications didn't stop there either. At pop star Olivia Rodrigo's inaugural Daisy Chain Fields Musical Festival, the 23-year-old took to the
stage with Sarah McLachlan, performing McLachlan's 1997 hit, "Angel," as an ode to Dolly. But in true Dolly spirit, Daisy Chain Fields was about much
more than the music. The festival also raised money and awareness for a number of nonprofit organizations working to support women and girls'
issues across the U.S.
[13:55:00]
Rodrigo vowed to donate all net proceeds to those chosen charities. By the end of the day, the event had raised a whopping $20 million, the power of
Dolly Parton.
All right. That is it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. And remember, you can
always catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media. Thanks so much for watching, and goodbye from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
