A girl from the Hazara Community, Feroza Muhammad Khan, recently wrote a blog for Geo News, in which she discussed the plight of the community and how she lost two of her brothers in two separate incidents.
Feroza said that she constantly lives in a state of fear. "I don't feel fear sometimes, but I feel fear all the time, every day. It is something I have to live with every day of my life," Feroza said, adding that she is a proud Pakistani but the way her community is being treated breaks her heart.
She said that her younger brother went missing as he was traveling to Australia. "We wanted him to leave this place so at least one of us could be safe, but he went missing on his way and was never to be found," she said, adding that her second brother was killed by 'unknown assailants' while he was working in his car workshop.
Feroza said that she is the only child remaining now, and her father is too old to make ends meet. "My father is too old to support my mother and my brother’s wife and children, who also live with us in Quetta. So he has rented my brother’s shop out to make ends meet. It’s little, but we make do."
Feroza herself studies at a fine arts college in Lahore and says that Lahore is safer than Quetta. "I live in Lahore. I am studying fine arts at a college on a full scholarship. It is safer here; safer then Quetta."
The 24-year-old writes that every day she took a bus to college in Quetta, she would wonder if she and the Hazaras riding the bus were 'next'. For herself, fear is an everyday thing.
"But those days are behind me, I think. Even then, I keep worrying about my family back home. How can I not? There are so few of us left now."
Feroza said that she constantly lives in a state of fear. "I don't feel fear sometimes, but I feel fear all the time, every day. It is something I have to live with every day of my life," Feroza said, adding that she is a proud Pakistani but the way her community is being treated breaks her heart.
She said that her younger brother went missing as he was traveling to Australia. "We wanted him to leave this place so at least one of us could be safe, but he went missing on his way and was never to be found," she said, adding that her second brother was killed by 'unknown assailants' while he was working in his car workshop.
Feroza said that she is the only child remaining now, and her father is too old to make ends meet. "My father is too old to support my mother and my brother’s wife and children, who also live with us in Quetta. So he has rented my brother’s shop out to make ends meet. It’s little, but we make do."
Feroza herself studies at a fine arts college in Lahore and says that Lahore is safer than Quetta. "I live in Lahore. I am studying fine arts at a college on a full scholarship. It is safer here; safer then Quetta."
The 24-year-old writes that every day she took a bus to college in Quetta, she would wonder if she and the Hazaras riding the bus were 'next'. For herself, fear is an everyday thing.
"But those days are behind me, I think. Even then, I keep worrying about my family back home. How can I not? There are so few of us left now."