Afghan evacuees rebuild lives in S. Korea a year after Taliban takeover

YONGIN (South Korea) • A year after nearly 400 Afghans fled the Taliban takeover of their homeland to settle in South Korea, many have swopped white-collar pursuits for factory jobs in a struggle with language and cultural challenges as they build new lives.

They were among the 79 Afghan families Seoul evacuated as Kabul fell to the Taliban last August, granting them long-term stays in return for having worked on its projects in the war-ravaged mountainous nation.

"It's so hard to lose everything, especially your homeland," Mr Shahpoor Ahmad Azimi, 38, tearfully told Reuters just hours before he was due to begin his 12-hour overnight shift at a plastic factory in Yongin, south of Seoul.

A graduate of the elite Kabul University, with a bachelor's degree in journalism who formerly worked with a Korean provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan, Mr Azimi now packs plastic products. Despite the career change, the job feeds his family, Mr Azimi said, expressing gratitude to South Korea for helping them escape the Taliban which curbed the rights of women and girls, in particular, after it toppled the Western-backed government.

Still, every day is a challenge, he said, with language the single biggest hurdle on the way to resettlement. "Sometimes I can't tell the exact reasons to my boss, or to my colleagues," he added, describing the struggle to find the right words to explain himself.

While the government offers language classes for the evacuees, few of those working shifts can find the time to attend.

Many of the evacuated Afghans were office workers before, but most had to switch professions to find jobs, government data shows. Of the 78 families still in South Korea by February, 72 individuals had found jobs in manufacturing and shipbuilding, with 15 having quit, the data shows.

"They cited difficulty in adapting due to problems in communication, health and work environment," said official Song So-young from a support group the government set up for the new arrivals.

Of 27 with backgrounds in medical services, just two were able to find jobs in the same sector. Now, the government is reviewing the matter of acknowledging the licences from, and the experience amassed, in their home country, the official said.

Despite the host of concerns, Mr Azimi said he had no plan to return to Afghanistan in the near future, citing the well-being of his children, among other reasons.

Now, he added, he "never" thinks about the past and the life he had in Afghanistan, preferring to focus on a new start.

REUTERS