STORY BEHIND THE NAME OF MULLAH KAREEM NAZAR SCHOOL

Barakat is the realization of the shared vision held by two men: Chris Walter of Massachusetts, USA and Habibullah Karimi of Faryab, Afghanistan. This school has been named after Habibullah Karimi’s late father, Mullah Kareem Nazar. He was born and brought up in Andkhoy in the Northern province of Faryab and was a successful businessperson. He had a large family with fourteen children. However, he too fell victim to the long tragic history of Afghanistan, in 1986, when the Russians were fighting against the Mujahiddin. Mullah Kareem Nazar was making a routine trip from Andkhoy to Kabul. The road takes all wayfarers through the Salang Pass which winds through the beautiful HinduKush mountain ranges, and is subject to treacherous life-threatening avalanches.

During the cold winters these roads are often blocked by snow and ice, causing all transportation and communication to cease. The Russians changed this by building huge tunnels that snake their way across the length of the road. These tunnels are massive, forbidding concrete structures, many of which have no openings for light or ventilation. All vehicles entering the tunnel must keep their lights on and drive slowly though the passengers inevitably feel a sense of impending suffocation and closing-in walls. In 1986 as Mullah Kareem Nazar’s truck was passing through the longest tunnel which stretches for six miles, the Russians chose to block both ends of the tunnel for four days without relief, under suspicion that there were Mujahiddin traveling through the tunnel at the time. It was the middle of Winter and many people died of cold and hunger in the tunnel. Mullah Kareem Nazar survived to reach Kabul but died soon after of the starvation, shock and exposure of being in a death trap for four days on end. It is in his memory that this school has been named.