![]() Omer Khan with his son Umair and wife Hasiba outside their apartment complex in El Cajon on August 22, 2022. With the help of Jewish Family Services, a resettlement agency working with Afghan refugees, Khan found a one-bedroom apartment in January that’s close to work, as well as markets selling traditional Afghan food. Image by Omer Khan.Īfter spending three months at Camp Atterbury in Indiana, which housed thousands of Afghan evacuees, Khan and his family settled in El Cajon. Right: Images of women from a beauty parlor salon in Kabul that were defaced by the Taliban on August 15, 2021, the day they took control of the capital. military plane bound for Qatar after evacuating from Afghanistan on August 25, 2021. Left: Omer Khan with his son Umair aboard a U.S. It was the last set of photos he took in Afghanistan. He left behind his father, mother, sister, and brother.īefore evacuating, Khan documented the immediate aftermath of the Taliban takeover, including images of women at a Kabul beauty salon that were defaced. His employer at the embassy told him to expect a signal when it was time to be evacuated.Īfter waiting for nine days and hearing nothing, Khan decided to head to the airport with his wife, son, and brother. The Taliban was already hunting Afghans who had worked with Americans. “No one could believe that the Taliban would take over Afghanistan again,” he said.īecause of his affiliation with the embassy, Khan knew he couldn’t stay in Afghanistan. His wife, Hasiba, called and told him to come home. On August 15, as news spread that the Taliban had taken over Kabul, Khan was at his gallery. Image by Valerie Plesch/The San Diego Union-Tribune. Here, Khan looks at his photos taken in 2018 of Buzkashi, Afghanistan’s national sport that was banned by the Taliban from 1996-2001. It was the only copy he was able to bring with him when he evacuated from Afghanistan. Omer Khan goes through his photo book, Hidden Treasure, on August 22, 2022. He was able to bring only one copy on his flight out of Afghanistan. Two years before fleeing, he published about 250 copies of a photo book titled “Hidden Treasure” so he could “show the positive side of Afghanistan, the unseen face of Afghanistan, to the world.” Khan ventured to all corners of Afghanistan to document the people and landscapes of his country. Embassy in Kabul, where he sold his photos and Afghan handicrafts. He worked as a photographer for television stations and NGOs and rented a gallery space with his brother at the U.S. Khan’s passion for photography started in 2014, when he enrolled in a journalism program at a private university in Kabul. Afghanistan, 2020.Ī man sells balloons in Kabul. Afghanistan, 2021.Ī view of Kabul, a sprawling city of almost 6 million people. We lost our, home, our life.”Īfghan National Army soldiers in Kabul. Donate any amount today to become a Pulitzer Center Champion and receive exclusive benefits! As a nonprofit journalism organization, we depend on your support to fund more than 170 reporting projects every year on critical global and local issues. ![]()
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