After months of living under suffocating Taliban rule, losing her much-loved job, encountering death threats and oppression, Manizha and her family escaped from Afghanistan thanks with help from an old friend.

Arriving in Ireland at Christmas, Manizha and her family were welcomed warmly by their new neighbours in Rosscarbery.

"When we came, it was Christmas. And I remember when we reached Irish soil, my daughter said, where is Santa Claus? Because Dublin Airport was so beautiful with decorations.

“We were in Reenascreena at the time and that house was so isolated and all the neighbours came to us. They brought us Christmas gifts. They brought us Christmas cards. They brought us cookies. They didn't let us feel lonely. It wasn't like a show, you know, they didn't come to see ‘that poor refugee family’. It wasn't like that.”

“It was like, look at this refugee family alone here during Christmas.”

Ireland is home now.

“I think I am Irish. If God forbid tomorrow Ireland goes in war, I will be fighting for Ireland. I would die for Ireland. I won't let Ireland go to the same pain that Afghanistan went through.”

Read Manizha Khan’s article in this week’s Irish Examiner

Ireland welcomed me, but new rules mean my path is impossible to follow

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