by Georgann Yara, working for ASU News
His phone started pinging with the news he feared: The Taliban was moving toward his province, the only one not yet swallowed in its swift movement through Afghanistan in the wake of the American withdrawal.
Omar immediately called his employees and told them to stay home.
Then, he started shredding documents.
“I told them not to come into the office, and I myself was in the office. I had to remove all documents and anything related to the government. I was deleting everything from my phone,” recalls Omar of his last days as a government employee working in Panjshir, a province about 80 miles from the capital of Kabul. “They were taking over. I went to my WhatsApp and messaged all the groups I communicated with saying, ‘Hey, goodbye, this may be my final communication with you.’”
The Thunderbird School of Global Management student shares his story from the safety of Arizona State University student housing. But his family remains in Kabul, which is why only his first name is being used.
Afghan forces were retreating and diminishing. Omar’s office view was filled with planes, helicopters and military personnel with automatic weapons. He wasn’t combat trained but when a member of the military asked Omar to join their effort he considered it.
Then he was handed a machine gun and spotted blood on the barrel and handle.
“Uh, OK, maybe you keep it,” Omar responded.
Since 2020, Omar had worked in small- and mid-sized business development for a collaboration between the World Bank Group and the Afghan government. Omar’s work connected him with a fellow consultant who told him about Thunderbird.
After doing research, Omar fell in love with the idea of taking his professional life to the next level with a degree from Thunderbird’s Master of Global Management program. He was waiting on approval of his student visa in anticipation of attending classes for the 2021 fall semester on a scholarship.
Then the government collapsed, taking Omar’s plans along with it.
With tears in his eyes, Omar went into the street, praying for God to show him a way out that didn’t involve killing or being killed – seemingly his only options.
Then, Omar received a message. It wasn’t from God but it was just as good.
Thunderbird alumna Gwyn Nichols knew Omar through Rotary International. She was well aware of the upheaval that prevented him from not only going to school but leaving the country.
Omar received a WhatsApp note from Nichols, who was among fellow Thunderbird alumni helping to evacuate Afghan refugees. She told Omar she would work on a way to get him a coveted spot on a list that would bring him to Arizona.
That’s when Omar’s harrowing four-month journey that brought him to the U.S. began.
He managed to escape Panjshir to see his family in Kabul. He arrived to see half of the city obliterated with heavy Taliban presence around the capitol. He was surrounded by chaos. His hometown was unrecognizable.
“People had bags, going in all different directions, they had no idea where they were going. It was like doomsday. The world is ending and they have no idea what they are doing. People’s faces looked like chalk. It was so scary and shocking; I can’t put a name on it,” Omar, 30, says.
Omar reached his parents’ house and explained the effort to get him out of the country. Seeing the fear in their eyes mixed with sadness that they would have to say goodbye not knowing when they could hug their son again made the conversation more painful.
“It was very difficult. It still is difficult to think about leaving them to this day,” Omar says. He pauses, looks down and takes a deep breath. “They didn’t have documentation so they couldn’t leave. But they told me, ‘You should leave because you are really in danger. You work with the government and USA. People know you.’”
Omar’s three futile attempts to get inside the Kabul airport were no less tumultuous than the scene on the streets.
One night, he accidentally stepped on a child’s foot while straining through the darkness and throngs of people camped on the ground outside of the gates of the airport. He left and the next morning, Omar returned to find his elderly aunt and her family among the masses hoping to get inside. When the Taliban showed up, the crowd dispersed and Omar never saw them again.
Unpredictable shootings and detonating bombs were the Taliban’s preferred method of crowd control. Omar describes the thick walls of dust and temporarily losing his hearing after a bomb went off. Every now and then he heard a painful scream above it all and the words, “Oh my hands! Oh my feet!”
“I could never have imagined people in that situation. At that moment, you don’t want to see what’s around you. You’re in survival mode. Anytime, you can have a bullet in your head or an explosion can happen and you’re gone. Initially, you think this is not real. But slowly you come to realize you just have to submit yourself to destiny. If I’m going to die, I’m going to die,” Omar recalls from those airport trips.
As his hope of ever leaving faded, Omar received a communication from Kellie Kreiser, a Thunderbird alumna and executive director for Thunderbird for Good, about transportation that would take him — along with dozens of other evacuees — to a departing flight in Mazar, about 265 miles away. Another Thunderbird alumna, Ilaha Omar, was working on evacuations from Afghanistan and managed to get him manifested on a flight.
But first, Omar had to survive a treacherous drive in a dilapidated bus that broke down on a thin and winding road through the mountains. He was among 40 passengers, most of them women and children.
Eventually, everyone made it to Mazar, and after 20 days, he was able to get onto a flight to Macedonia. After another month, Omar boarded a plane that took him to Turkey, then Chicago and eventually Phoenix. He arrived Nov. 13 with only one small bag, his phone and passport. He didn’t have a single dollar or coin in his pockets. His accounts back home were frozen.
Nichols and Kreisler were part of a Thunderbird network led by Dean Sanjeev Khagram, himself a former refugee, that spearheaded efforts to not only get Omar to safety, but also to raise funds to help get him settled with the basic necessities when he arrived, including housing, and to provide him with a full scholarship to attend the school.
“All of these wonderful beautiful people are helping me. These amazing people are really like a real family to me,” Omar says. “Without them, evacuation is not possible. I never met them and I cannot imagine a team with that kind of dedication.”
Without their intervention, Omar believes he would not be walking this Earth today.
“I believe without ASU Thunderbird nothing was possible for me. I would not be here right now,” Omar says, as a smile starts to take over his face. “I don’t know where I would be. Maybe I would be gone … to another universe.”
With his J-1 visa firmly in hand, Omar is excited to start classes in January. He also wants to start working to earn money to support himself and send to his parents in Kabul, where resources are depleted and employment opportunities have dried up amidst the destruction.
His career goal: Make high-dollar impactful projects more affordable and accessible, a job similar to what he did in Afghanistan.
“In Afghanistan, I just wanted a job. Here, this is the land of opportunity and a degree from a prestigious university is of huge value,” Omar says. “This was my dream: to come to Arizona State University and study and become somebody in the world.”
Omar arrived in Phoenix in November 2020. A collaborative effort by Thunderbird alumni Gwyn Nichols, Ilaha Omar and Kellie Kreiser, former ambassador to Macedonia Phil Reeker, and Rotary International made his evacuation and transition to the U.S. and ASU possible. Omar is currently pursuing his degree from Thunderbird’s Master of Global Management program.
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