Afghan refugee Khalid Amiri makes a fresh start at Melbourne

In 2021, Khalid Amiri was working as a news presenter for Afghan state broadcaster RTA. He was an open critic of the Taliban.

So when the Taliban entered Kabul in August last year, he immediately went into hiding.

“One by one our provinces started falling… It was heartbreaking when we realised they had entered Kabul,” he says.

From hiding, Amiri emailed numerous foreign embassies before receiving confirmation that the Australian government would help him flee. Along with some members of his family, he made the difficult journey to the Kabul airport.

That day, he says, was “one of the hardest days in [my] life.”

“It felt like the entire Afghanistan was at the airport and everybody wanted to flee the country… People were climbing over one another, there was aerial firing and everybody wanted to get into the airport entrance gate.”

Amiri recalls his mother fainting twice in the crowd, and people continuing to climb over one another.

After two nights waiting outside the airport, surrounded by gunshots and tear gas and without any food, Amiri and his family boarded a plane bound for Dubai. After nine days there, they landed in Darwin.

It would be the beginning of a new life – but not one made by choice.

“You have to leave your home behind. Everything you do. We left with nothing but the clothes that we were wearing,” Amiri says.

Coming to terms with a new life

At the Howard Springs quarantine facility Amiri’s family discussed where in Australia they’d go. Amiri was keen on Sydney, but his mother had heard good things about Melbourne, and by October they were in a temporary residence for refugees on Swanston Street.

Amiri says it was extremely hard to come to terms with the disaster unfolding in his country.

“I thought it must be a nightmare... And the next morning I’ll wake up, I'll be again in Kabul getting ready and going back to work in the studio. But then it was this harsh reality, and we had to accept it.”

His new reality was a city still in the depths of COVID lockdowns.

But on some of those springtime evenings, he and his mother would walk together, slowly getting to know their new city. Sometimes they would walk through the University of Melbourne’s Parkville campus.

“I used to tell my mum that I wish someday I’d get admission in this university,” he recalls.

His mother told him he would definitely get there – and as it turns out, it would happen sooner than he thought.

Starting at Melbourne

Amiri applied for the Master of International Relations, and with support of the Jack and Hedy Brent Foundation, was granted a scholarship to start studying at the beginning of this year.

It would signify not only the opportunity to pursue a new career in Australia, but a chance to begin a process of healing.

“I was completely traumatised since I was here [in Melbourne]. But when I received this email of getting a scholarship… it somehow healed me in so many ways.”

When he told his parents the news, their reaction was emotional.

“They had tears in their eyes,” he says. “They were tears of joy and happiness because in the past few months, we experienced a lot of trauma and pain.”

Already an accomplished journalist, Amiri hopes that deepening his knowledge of international relations will give him a better understanding of the international presence in, and consequent withdrawal from Afghanistan, which has had catastrophic impacts on the Afghan people.

“The international community abandoned us. They left; they withdrew their troops. And then just six months after the withdrawal, Afghanistan fell to the Taliban,” he says.

“I realised I needed to have a better understanding of this entire great game; what the great powers in the world do and what matters to them the most.”

He hopes to use his deepened knowledge of international relations to be able to serve his country again in the future.

“I believe it is one of the best contributions somebody can make, to educate refugees and their children,” he says.