ISLAMABAD: Maeda Hussaini, 17, wanted to be an astronaut and she even wrote to America’s space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It might seem out of reach for an Afghan girl, but the sky was the limit.
When the Taliban grabbed power in 2021, and her family fled to Iran. But Maeda refused to give up on her dream. She decided to travel over land to Turkiya and risked the sea crossing over to Europe to continue her studies.
Mahtab, her mother, was anxious, but Maeda eventually won her round.
“I told her, ‘Go, my dear daughter, may God protect you,'” said Mahtab. “She was capable.”
Maeda spent four days and nights at high sea after the boat she boarded travelled from Turkey on February 22.
“Hello mum, I hope you are alright. I am well and happy. I am still in the boat. We will get off in thirty minutes,” she said in her last voice message to her mother, who could hear the waves in the background.
After that, a final text: “My mum, I am almost in Italy, getting off shortly, happy and healthy. Do not you worry.”
Then news came that the overcrowded migrant boat sank in rough seas within sight of the Italian coast at Crotone.
Of some 200 people from different nations on board, at least 86 died. The young Afghan girl, Maeda’s body, was found nearly three weeks later, and more are still missing.
It is rare for the young lady to take such journeys alone because of the high risks, but Mahtab says her eldest child was determined.
Her family said Maeda had been shot in the leg as she crossed from Iran to Turkey seven months earlier. Who attacked her is unclear as border security guards on both sides are armed.
But it did not appear to deter Maeda – she spent ten days with the bullet in her leg, fearing deportation if the authority found she’d visited the doctor before other migrants took her to a clinic to remove it.
Dreams of Space
Maeda made several unsuccessful attempts to reach Europe before crossing to Crotone.
“I worried about her, and I asked her to come back to Iran,” said Mahtab. “I told her, ‘Are not you tired of trying, again and again, to go abroad?'”
According to official figures, in 2022, Afghans accounted for 13 per cent of all asylum seekers in the 27-member European Union, Switzerland, and Norway.
Turkey is the major transit point for Afghans trying to reach European countries. They either moved up via the Balkans or tried to cross by sea to get to other countries like Italy, as Maeda did.
