VIDEO: After the Fall | Mahboba Rawi + Nawid 'Sourosh' Cina

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Hello. The story you’re about to hear is so amazing that you’d swear it’s made up. It involves the audacious rescue of a group of orphans in Afghanistan, coordinated out of a Sydney lounge room after the Taliban took back control of the country in 2021. Now you might think you’d need soldiers or spies to pull something like that off, but no. It was coordinated by an Afghan refugee and her son with no experience whatsoever. All Mahboba Rawi knew was that there was no way she was going to abandon children living in orphanages that she herself had founded. 

ABC News, August 2001  

Newsreader: Afghans are facing a new reality with their country back under Taliban control after 20 years of war. 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: This whole journey began August 15th, 2021. And for me, like, everything that's happened from that time, it's all one moment. The speed of the Taliban resurgence shocked everyone. I turn on the news and they're at the gates of Kabul.  

ABC News, August 2001 

Newsreader: Armed militants have taken the capital Kabul completing their swift advance. 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: The Taliban takeover stripped away our work, like they came, and they just took it from us. And the implications were clear from the beginning. Our work with women and girls, you know, like, it's it's done. We can't keep these kids safely at my mum’s orphanages. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER, REFUGEE ADVICE AND CASEWORK SERVICE (RACS): Australia is not going to send in special forces to get these children out of Afghanistan. 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: And so that's when I realised like this is on us. If we want to evacuate these people, if we want to get them out, like we have to do this.  

Phone call to contact at border between Afghanistan and Pakistan 

Man on phone: Taliban and FC are fighting. The situation is not OK. 

MAHBOBA RAWI, FOUNDER, MAHBOBA’S PROMISE: All I know is that I want to take the kids out, but I need help. So my son moved forward to help me. He become like a hero for this evacuation for me. 

Phone call to contact at border 

Man on phone: But do you know how they will cross? Taliban will not leave them to crossing the border. 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: Everything happened in this house. The house was just like a war room 

Evacuation attempt, July 2022 

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: The situation on the ground is like really different to the advice we received. The problem is the Taliban don't let you cross the border. Our group got to the border and they're not letting them through. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: It's remarkable that someone 26 years old has been a part of something as big as this. 

Evacuation attempt, July 2022 

Mahboba Rawi: Yeah, yeah, still they coming, still they coming. 
Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: It’s going to take some time. 
Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: It's going to take some time for them to come. Wait, wait, brother. Be patient. 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: I had no idea what I was getting myself into. All I knew is I've got to get these kids, I’ve got to get these people out. I did not think it was going to be this difficult 

TITLE: After the Fall 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: Mahboba is one of the single most tenacious forces of nature that I have ever met. 

Sourosh’s house 

Mahboba Rawi: Sourosh doesn't wash all the dishes. He always leave it to me. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: She is unstoppable and it is impossible to not see that in Soroush. And I think that is what makes them this power duo. 

Sourosh’s house 

Mahboba Rawi: He say I don't need mother, but you do need mother to make the house look nice and good and clean. 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: She's a typical Afghan mum, which means she's overbearing and intense, and she wants you to get married all the time. But you learn how to deal with that. 

Sourosh’s house 

Mahboba Rawi: I washing here, I washing there, I washing everywhere. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: I think that Mahboba likes to think that she has more control of Sourosh and Sourosh likes to think that he has more control over her. 

MAHBOBA RAWI: We are very, very close. But sometimes recently it's too much for him. So I have to back up a little bit and be patient with him. 

Sourosh’s house 

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: Did you speak to them about the kids that are coming 

Mahboba Rawi: Everybody is talking about evacuation and difficulty and need time to fix everything. 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: My mum's problem is she does too much, she gives too much. And she's done that for me and my sister like our whole lives. And not just me and my sister. She's done it for thousands. My mum in Afghanistan, she's called like the mother of thousands. All these orphans, they call her mother. And I think that loops back into the origin of how the work began. My mum was born in Kabul. She was a student activist when the Russians invaded, which meant she had to flee when she was 14. 

MAHBOBA RAWI, FOUNDER, MAHBOBA’S PROMISE: I come to Australia age of 18. I had my daughter then I had one beautiful little boy, Arash. In 1992, it was July school holiday and Arash wanted to go with his uncle to Kiama Blowhole for a picnic. They went to have a picnic and a wave come and wash them all.  

ABC News, July 1992 

Newsreader: A terrible accident this afternoon at one of the most popular tourist sites on the south coast of NSW. 

Eyewitness: All I saw was bodies floating, that’s all. 

MAHBOBA RAWI, FOUNDER, MAHBOBA’S PROMISE: When the tragedy happened to me it hurt me emotionally, physically. I haven't got my period for a couple of years, and I always wanted to have another child. And one day it happened. For nine years I always believe that this is Arash. I have my son back, and that's how I was healing, I guess. And then one day Sourosh came to me and said, ‘Mum, I want to be loved not as the son that you lost, as the son that I'm alive.’ After that, I know that I lost Arash and this is Sourosh. 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: When I was around one, my mum and dad split. My mum raised my sister and I as a single mum, but we've always been close to my dad. 

The 7.30 Report, ABC, 2001 

In Sydney's north-west, Mahboba Cina is bringing up two children on her own.  

MAHBOBA RAWI, FOUNDER, MAHBOBA’S PROMISE: When I lost a son the direction of my life change. I said, Well, I'm going to give my life to save children. So that's why I establish this charity called Mahboba's Promise. There was millions of orphans in Afghanistan. And I built four Hope Houses all over Afghanistan.  

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: The kids in those orphanages are in there for a variety of reasons, each story genuinely more heartbreaking than the one before. Every single one of these kids, they’ve been in our care for years. 

MAHBOBA RAWI: I travel to Afghanistan once a year for three months, four months, and when I sit on the corner of Hope House and I see these children running around and they call me mother I cannot believe this is what I have done. 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: I was born in North Ryde. I've grown up in this house my whole life.  I studied law and international studies and I think just by virtue of who I was, the context I was raised in with my mum's work, I've always had like a really deep passion for human rights. Also I've been really involved in community work. And I wanted to give back. 

ABC News, August 2021 

Newsreader: Scrambling to flee Afghanistan, the President is evacuated as the government collapses and the Taliban takes over. 

Video call, August 2021 

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: We’re deeply deeply, deeply, deeply concerned and worried about the orphans that we’ve got in Kabul, about the staff there, about the families there. It looks like we might have to move them out of the country. I just don’t know what the heck is going on. 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: When the Taliban took over, the first thing I knew immediately was we had to get the orphans in our care out. The fundamental risk for all of these people is their association with Australia, with the West, with Western values. I can't put into words how distasteful the idea of these children being with Australians is to the Taliban. For us it was survival, we were kind of convinced in that moment it would mean death for these people. We were learning it on the spot. I've never led an evacuation effort in my life. I've never lobbied the government. I don't know how to do all these things and those are the things that were required, right? 

Sourosh at computer  

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: From the first day you’re creating all these different lists, like the first one was 60 people. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: Soroush and I just kind of collided in this kind of immediacy in in the evacuation period of Kabul. And he said, you know, we've got all these kids and we're trying to get out staff. And I said, it's OK, like RACS can help you with the paperwork side of things. 

Sourosh at computer  

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: So like this is what you needed. You would have the name, sex, the relationship to each other, each applicant. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: We had to go through that process of who's at more risk than whom and why this person should come over this person  

Sourosh at computer  

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: We were making decisions around like basically how to cut people and how do you make that decision? You can't. 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: By August 20th, we had amassed a group in Kabul. The Australian Government was issuing emergency visas. So you're sending lists to different people in government and you’re just hoping something ends up somewhere. 

Sourosh on phone at home  

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: We need a bit of a champion around it and just a little bit more oomph, like a little bit more pressure from up above. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: Nobody really knew what the system was. And everybody was just throwing everything they had at the wall to try and be ... You wanted to be on the list. 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: The fundamental priority was always the orphans. And then some of the very high-risk staff.  

Sourosh on phone at home  

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: Like the situation in Afghanistan is just so bad we have no way to really keep them safe. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: We were advocating, following, calling. Have you got our list? Who's got it? Who's getting out? How do we get on a flight? Do we send them to the airport? 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: What we required to make that airport evacuation successful was emergency visas. Seventeen were granted visas. The email came through in the morning. No one could tell us how those visas were granted and why. It was just like completely random. When we had a group 200 metres away from the gate, we couldn't get a few soldiers out to guide them in. Like, that's how chaotic it was. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: We've got one person telling us to go, another person telling us not to go and really. Sourosh having to make that call of, you know, ‘what do I do?’ 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: I was on the phone with them, I could hear the shooting through the phone. I could hear the chaos, I could hear the screaming. And so I made the decision to turn them back around. It broke me a little bit, that moment. 

Sourosh at computer  

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: This was definitely the hardest night of my life. The airport was this thing that just crushed you. Like, you just fail, like, it just … it wouldn't work and that was crippling. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: It was once that last flight left Kabul that we had to regroup and decide, right, you know, what's the next step?  

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: All issuing of emergency visas was cut. Didn't matter who they were. They were just stopped. The airport closed, there was no way to evacuate people. Panjshir Valley fell. The Taliban took it and they occupied our orphanage, which meant they had access to everything about us. So with the 17 who had emergency visas we coordinated a ground evacuation via Pakistan and the embassy in Pakistan picked them up. Australian government brought them in here and they quarantined them for two weeks. So that was a really successful process. 

ABC News, September 2021 

Newsreader: Signs of relief among a group of orphans after their dramatic escape from Afghanistan. 

Mahboba Rawi: There is no words to express the feeling that I … top of the moon, I think. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: When the first group got out and came here, it was so bittersweet. The lives of those children that arrived changed in an instant. But it's also hard because you have left friends and their family behind.  

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: I had a really mixed reaction to the 17 coming. When they first came, I actually, I couldn't see them straight away. I just gave myself a bit of distance. I was focused on like the ones that were left behind. And it wasn't until like I came, I saw them and like that’s when it became real for me and I was like, hey like we … these kids lives have been saved through these efforts. And that's when I became, like, really happy. Like, I let myself feel something. 

Sourosh in the park with the children 

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: You can't differentiate them from an Aussie like now. I thought they would be tripping out as well. Like, what am I doing in Australia? But nah, like after a week they’re just taking it for all that it is.  

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: The 17 are here, the core task still remains like how do we evacuate the remaining orphans, widows and staff? Every single day I was advocating lobbying in some way or another for the visas and we weren't really getting anywhere. We hadn’t made proper progress. 

Sarah on the phone outside her office  

Sarah Dale, lawyer: We're just waiting to hear from the minister 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: If we could get visas, we felt like we could achieve everything else. 

Sarah on the phone outside her office  

Sarah Dale, lawyer: We can't speed it up. There's no there's not another person for us to call. 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: Most people had kind of given up that the visas would be granted any time soon. But for me, I knew like I needed to give, like, one last shot, one last push so I can sit down and be like, I did my best here, and that's it. And so a plan began to develop in the back of my head with Afghanistan.  

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: I was like, absolutely not. You're not going to Afghanistan. It's too dangerous. It's too risky. But I was overruled. He had to make sure that there was a safe pathway out if we were getting those visas ever. 

MAHBOBA RAWI, FOUNDER, MAHBOBA’S PROMISE: It's very, very brave of him to go but If we all scare of our self and scare of our children, then who's going to bring change to the world? 

Video diary from Afghanistan 

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: I came into Afghanistan and very, very soon it became apparent that we have no ability to provide adequate security for those that are at risk  

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: He could say hand on his heart, you know, I've seen it. That danger is real and we need to act now. 

Video diary from Afghanistan 

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: All we need are visas. Once we get those visas, these kids. Bam, bam, bam. We can get him out. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: Soroush comes back to Australia and then we just kind of ramped up again. We were granted 91 visas to come to Australia and about 50 of them are for vulnerable children, including orphans. While we were working on how to get this new group out of Afghanistan we were also trying to figure out where they would live once they arrived here in Australia. With that number of children it was a real risk that they would be settled throughout the country. This is not what Mahboba wanted. She wanted them near her, close to her, so she could continue with those relationships with the children.  

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: I am kind of in the middle of what my mum's dream is and what her vision is and what the Australian Government requires. So I'm trying to bridge those two worlds together and come to a sweet middle spot. My mum's dream is Hope House Australia. Somewhere where she's with all these kids all the time, 24/7. We don't do orphanages in Australia so it's an impossible dream.  

Sourosh and Mahboba at Mahboba’s Promise office 

Mahboba Rawi: It's my children. And it's fine that I respect the law of this country but the country should respect me as a mother of a thousand children. For a mother of thousand, 60 kids is nothing. I can keep them even in my house and I know I can. 

MAHBOBA RAWI, FOUNDER, MAHBOBA’S PROMISE: To me, it's … my way is a little bit from the heart and emotional, but my son will make it practical way possible. 

Sourosh and Mahboba at Mahboba’s Promise office 

Mahboba Rawi: To put it this way, my son, why can't you with your good English convincing the government, my mother, she don't have two children, she's got 1000 children. For God's sake. Why you can't do that?  
Sourosh: It's really easy, don’t worry, I’ll do it. 
Mahboba Rawi: It's easy or not easy. You just have to fight. You have to fight for it if you're going to have a gut to fight for it, I will. 
Sourosh: I don't have the guts? [spoken in Dari] You’re really passing the buck to me. Any ethnic kid watching that they can relate immediately. Like, why can't you just make the Australian government change all of its laws and just put all these kids the way I want them, you know. 
Mahboba Rawi: Then why you study law for? 

[both laugh]  

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: At the moment some of the kids will be going into foster care immediately with people that they already have a connection with, and the rest will be initially in residential care and they'll probably like slowly migrate into foster care once we find appropriate families. We really fought to get them in Sydney and we succeeded. So it's a massive win. My mum, the charity, it needs to be there. I think it's hard for the government to internalise that these kids literally see her as a mother figure. It's a really big cultural difference but if that's not understood and respected, like, it's going to be very messy. 

Sourosh’s house, two days before evacuation attempt 

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: How are you going? 
Sarah Dale: Where's your mum? 
Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: She's over there.  

Mahboba Rawi: Hello. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: So months after we've got visas, the children and the carers are still in Kabul and we start formulating a plan as to how it is that they can travel from Kabul to Islamabad, Pakistan.  

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: The evacuation effort into Pakistan is proving extremely difficult. 

Sourosh’s house, two days before evacuation attempt 

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: Did you sleep all right? 
Sarah Dale: Um. No 
Mahboba Rawi: Not really.  

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: After months of negotiations, we've managed to secure an amnesty with the Pakistan government, which will allow the children and the adults to cross into Pakistan and then be flown to Australia to safety. 

Sourosh’s house, two days before evacuation attempt 

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: So there’s a potential issue in the border with the Pakistani officials cause the names don’t look the same? 

Sarah: Correct. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: Despite this, it's still extraordinarily fraught. 

Sourosh’s house, two days before evacuation attempt 

Mahboba Rawi: Three, four car has been hired and then good driver with people who knows the way and then they three hours to Khyber Pass and then waiting on the border. If they pass from Taliban in the border, then the problem is fixed. 

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: But you don't know how the interaction with the Taliban will play out. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: You can never really predict what's going to happen on a border, and particularly a border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Sourosh’s house, two days before evacuation attempt 

Mahboba Rawi: These three groups will be leaving tonight. Did you have any questions you wanted to ask? 

Woman: No, no 

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: How to you feel about everything? 

Woman in Afghanistan: I’m so happy. My life will be changed. I proud of my mother Mahboba. 

TWO DAYS LATER 

Sourosh’s house, night of evacuation attempt 

Man on phone at Pakistan border: You tell them to not come. For one hour they just where they are. Because here the situation is not OK.  

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: The first day of evacuations did not go to plan at all. The border was far worse than we expected.  

Sourosh’s house, night of evacuation attempt 

Mahboba Rawi: There’s fighting in the border between Taliban. 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: They were not letting them through. There was a lot of extortion happening. 

Sourosh’s house, night of evacuation attempt 

Mahboba Rawi: What the hell is going on? 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: They knew as soon as we arrive without passports and visas, we're probably going to the West. Complete chaos after that. 

Sourosh’s house, night of evacuation attempt 

Man on phone at Pakistan border: But do you know how they will cross Taliban? Taliban will not let them to crossing the border. 

Sourosh’s house, night of evacuation attempt 

Mahboba Rawi: The guy on the ground said give me three of your boy, the older ones. They went with the Taliban. I have to wait and see what happened. If they’re not, then we know we lost three boys. It’s getting so so difficult. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: The border was absolute chaos. Everything was changing minute by minute.  

Sourosh’s house, night of evacuation attempt 

Mahboba Rawi: What if they just ... the children disappear. What are we going to do? 

Man on phone at Pakistan border: It’s OK sister, I got all three. They are with me now. You don't have any problem.  

Mahboba Rawi: Thank you so much, brother. I will send that the rest of family. But please stay for a few more hours until they all reach to you. Good news. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: Unfortunately, despite all of our plans, we were only able to get 11 across of those intended to cross into the border that night 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: We've had to regroup, replan, get assistance from security organisations and other like evacuation experts. It's really bad. The border is really bad. So let's see what happens. 

11 DAYS LATER 

Sourosh’s house, August 5, 2022 

Sarah Dale, lawyer: We've just received confirmation that they've all crossed into Pakistan. So we're almost there and this was probably one of the hardest things to overcome. This was the big, big group.  

Mahboba Rawi: How good is that.  

Sarah Dale: So it's incredible relief. 

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: I don’t know if you can relax. Can you ever really relax? 

Mahboba Rawi: When the plan A wasn't working, we got plan B with somebody else, but we just suddenly decided, no, we do it Afghani way. 

Nawid ‘Sourosh’ Cina: Thank God most of them are in. I think like three days ago, honestly, it was just so unclear if it would happen. And it's a … it's a miracle that it has. Like, we did not think that the borders would be this difficult.  

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: For everyone that's crossed, there's still one that's left behind. So it's very difficult to fully celebrate whilst you still have some left behind. 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: You're operating consistently in a crisis zone, so you're like just … it's just adrenaline and you're just ... you're operating way beyond your capacity. 

MAHBOBA RAWI: I can see that it's too much for my beloved son, but I believe that even though I feel guilty about it all these other children is my children as well. Like you. What else I could have done as a mother? 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: Seeing the kids and the families arrive over the past 10 days is an incredible thing. In that moment, their lives have shifted insurmountably. And to see that and feel that and be a part of that is beyond words. 

Children arrive at Sydney Airport, September 2022 

Mahboba Rawi: It’s so lovely to see them. They’re beautiful. I’m so excited about having them. 

SARAH DALE, LAWYER: But every celebration of someone crossing is immediately followed with that gut-wrenching realisation that there are those that are stuck and that we haven't got out and the remain in these perilous situations. So there is this immediate high and an immediate low in in every single moment throughout this process. 

MAHBOBA RAWI, FOUNDER, MAHBOBA’S PROMISE: Every morning, kids pick up their bag and all these young girls goes to school. So it's something historical moment, something huge. Something beautiful will come out of all of this. 

NAWID ‘SOUROSH’ CINA: It’s an incredible thing that Australia has stepped in to take responsibility to take responsibility for these lives. We have like an incredible capacity to make an impact on the world around us. Every single person. Like it is actually so much easier than people think. If responsibility comes to your doorstep, you have to take it. 

END CAPTION: In December 2022, Mahboba and Sourosh were awarded the 2022 Human Rights Medal for their work in Afghanistan.