Nuristan, Afghanistan – Like a crack of thunder, a deep blast echoes down a tree-lined valley a few kilometres from Parun, the capital of the northeastern Afghan province of Nuristan. At the base of a rocky hillside, smoke and chunks of rock spew from the mouth of a low tunnel. Some of the debris reaches the edge of a glassy river which runs through a small valley, causing ripples on the water’s surface.

Sheltering to one side of the tunnel entrance is Abdul Qader Abid. As the final pieces of shrapnel clatter to a standstill, he squints into the darkness of the tunnel. Rising, he wraps a green shawl around his mouth and nose, and heads into the billowing dust. There’s a payday glimmering in the rubble, and he’s eager to find it.

Abid, a stalky man in his mid-thirties with a neatly-trimmed beard and striking green eyes, walks gingerly, small stones crunching underfoot. After less than 30 metres (98 feet), the tunnel opens into a large chamber nearly double his height.

In early 2022, Abid and his fellow miners leased a plot of land to mine and have been working there for nearly six months. Tunnelling into the hillside has been slow work and the shaft is still shallow.

Inside the cavern, there is enough room for half a dozen miners to work at one time, and, only a few minutes after the dust from the blast has settled, the space becomes a flurry of activity. Some men wield pickaxes to loosen the rock, others toss shovelfuls of mud into wheelbarrows, while others squat amid piles of grey rubble, picking up stones and holding them up to the thin beams of sunlight that peek through the holes in the roof.

‘We were worried’

In his previous life, Abid was a soldier with the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the United States-backed republic government’s intelligence agency. Like thousands of others, when the Afghan republic government fell to the Taliban in August 2021, his job disappeared overnight, and his future met with uncertainty. He, along with many of his former military compatriots, was unsure if he could trust the promises of amnesty for former government soldiers proffered by the Taliban after the takeover.

In one of the group’s first official press conferences after coming to power, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid seemed to offer a sort of olive branch. “Thousands of soldiers who have fought us for 20 years, after the occupation, all of them have been pardoned … if they come back to their homes, no one is going to do anything to them; they will be safe.”

A 2022 report by the United Nations said that since the Taliban takeover, the group or its affiliates have been involved in the deaths of more than 100 former government officials, security forces and people who worked with international troops. The Taliban has consistently denied involvement.

“No one knew what was going to happen to us,” Abid says, taking himself back to the first weeks of Taliban rule. “Of course we were worried.”

But, for him and the other former soldiers he now mines with, the attacks never came. With no jobs, Abid soon realised that the biggest danger he and his family would soon face would be putting food on the table. Abid is the sole earner for his family of 16 which includes his mother, two wives and his seven children.

So Abid, along with many of his fellow ex-soldiers from Nuristan and neighbouring Kunar province to the south, decided to turn to one of the only jobs that still offered the prospect of a decent income in one of Afghanistan’s most remote regions — mining for gemstones.

Gemstones

Gem mining in Afghanistan has a long and storied history stretching back about 2,300 years to the period of Alexander the Great. By the 10th century, the gem mines of northern and eastern Afghanistan – in the lands bordering Tajikistan and Pakistan – were famed for their rubies, sapphires, tourmaline, lapis lazuli and topaz.

Much more recently, gem mines in the northeastern provinces of Nuristan, Kunar and Badakhshan served as a source of income for the Taliban as it struggled to fund its armed uprising against the republic government. This led the government to crack down on illegal gem mining in many areas of the country in an effort to prevent proceeds from flowing into the hands of the Taliban and local gem mafias.

Although slow to develop, the gem trade had grown to become a huge part of Afghanistan’s economic output. In 2019, precious metals, gems and jewellery made up 45 percent of Afghanistan’s total legal exports, with a total value of $1bn, according to The Observatory of Economic Complexity.

Although the gem mining sector is composed almost entirely of small, artisanal mines, it is an important source of jobs for local communities like Abid’s, particularly in a country which has faced political and economic isolation since the Taliban took control. For men like Abid, it has meant being able to provide for his family as Afghanistan continues to face an unprecedented economic crisis.

Even before the takeover, Afghanistan’s economy was struggling, and reliant almost completely on foreign aid. When the Taliban swept into power, much of Afghanistan’s international aid was placed on hold with foreign governments and NGOs uncertain how the group – whose government remains unrecognised by foreign countries and international organisations – would rule. The US froze nearly $9.5bn in assets belonging to Afghanistan’s central bank. In September last year, the US government said it would move $3.5bn to a new “Afghan Fund,” with the express purpose of lending some manner of financial support to Afghanistan without directly providing funds to the Taliban.

Afghanistan’s central banking system remains largely in disarray and unemployment remains at record levels, with some UN estimates placing the figure as high as 40 percent.

‘We pay the tax’

For men like Abid, gem mining offered an opportunity to make a living wage and continue working with his former army compatriots who had found themselves in a similar situation. After years spent in the Afghan military posted across Nuristan and Kunar, mining also allowed him to stay near his family, a welcome change.

Still, many of the former soldiers were hesitant about starting this work, unsure whether their backgrounds would bring unwanted attention, harassment, or worse from local Taliban members who now lived in the area. Many of the men working in the mine were Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) or government employees before the Taliban came to power, Abid explains. “Most were working with the national police, and the rest were in the army.”

With this worry in their minds, the men were surprised when, less than six months after returning to power, local Taliban officials announced that anyone, including former ANSF, would be permitted to operate small-scale gem mines on the condition that they pay a percentage of their earnings to local officials as tax.

“Under the previous government, [artisanal] mining was banned,” Abid says. “What we are doing here was completely illegal back then, because the government didn’t want money to end up with the Taliban. But once the Taliban took control of this area, they spread the word that people were free to mine as long as they paid the requisite two percent of their profits to the local authorities.” And so, they began mining.

Although Abid’s income is now far less consistent than what it was, the potential earnings are also much higher. According to the World Bank, in June 2023, the average unskilled labourer in Afghanistan earned about $100 per month. In a good month, Abid can earn five times this amount.

So far, Abid and his colleagues have been able to work without problems from the Taliban. Still, the spectre of future harassment hangs over their heads, and thirdhand stories about retributive attacks and abductions from neighbouring provinces are hard for the men to shake off. “We pay the tax, and so far everything runs smoothly,” Abid says. His expression darkens. “Only God knows what the future will bring,” he adds in a low voice.

Speed and thrift

For now, the work has presented other difficulties. None of the men in Abid’s mine had previous mining experience and work with the only tools available to them: homemade dynamite – made by the miners as required since they are unsafe to store – a rusted, ageing pneumatic jackhammer powered by a Chinese-made petrol-run generator, hammers, pickaxes and head torches. The 30-odd men had pooled their savings to lease the plot of land and bought some of the tools required with loans from local investors, so the miners were already in debt before their pickaxes had even struck the first stone.

Speed and thrift are the orders of the day as the men do not use safety equipment. Every dollar spent on safety is a dollar that cannot go into the miners’ pockets so there are no helmets, no safety glasses and no respirator masks to filter out the fine dust in the air. The men haven’t had any accidents in recent days, but others in nearby mines have not been so fortunate.And the work is physically demanding – the miners spend long days chipping away at the tunnel walls, carting heavy wheelbarrows full of rock back and forth, and squatting on the ground combing through rubble for any glint of value. The air inside the mine is hot and humid, and the sound of the jackhammer is deafening in such a small space. Days begin early and end after the sun sets, and, with no fixed salary, the men work as many hours as they can each week to increase their chances of striking it big.

A tourmaline to add to the haul

As the acrid fumes from the explosives hang in the air, Abid and a few of his colleagues pick through broken rock. The mine, though relatively new, has already borne much-needed fruit. At the mention of tourmaline, the translucent, pale green stone most commonly found in this area, one of the men pulls a thumb-size stone from his pocket, smiling. “We found this one a few days ago,” Safiullah, 40, who only wanted to give his first name, says. “It’s big, but the quality is not that high, and it has cracks. Still, we’re happy for every stone we find.”

Abid picks up a handful of glistening shards from the tunnel floor and sorts through them intently, eyes sparkling in the dim light from the holes overhead, head torches and lamps. “As you can see, it’s not a quick process,” he says, chuckling to himself. “All day it’s the same: drill, blast, dig, repeat.” Still, he is grateful to earn an income, and to be able to do so undisturbed. He dumps the shards back onto the floor and drags his hands across the surface of the rubble again, brows furrowed in concentration.

A few metres away, three men take turns hammering a metal bar into a seam in the rockface as they attempt to pry out a large quartz crystal. Although many of the men have not been miners for long, they quickly learned that quartz can often point to other, more valuable stones nearby.

Squatting next to Abid, another miner clicks his tongue in satisfaction and holds up a clear, green stone the size of a small fingernail. Another tourmaline to add to the day’s haul. Abid smiles and plucks the stone from his colleague’s hand, holding it up to the light. “It seems like we’re having a lucky day. This one’s small, but the quality is good,” he comments.

In this business, quality is everything. “The stones that have two colours are often the most valuable,” Abid says, wiping the grit from his palm to better inspect the stone.

Some of the most prized tourmalines are combinations of blue and green, or green and pink.

“If it’s very clear, with no cracks or marks, that’s ideal,” he explains. “This one has good colour, but I think it was broken by the blast.” He holds up his index finger and smiles, “If it was more like this size, everyone here would be celebrating.”

Every imperfection lowers the value of a stone to local dealers, who go from mine to mine in these remote mountainsides, often buying the best gemstones they can find in bulk to resell at higher prices in Kabul, or across the border at Pakistan’s gem markets where customers are plentiful. “If we had more precise tools, we would damage far fewer of the stones, but we have to make do with what we have,” another miner says, gesturing towards a pickaxe lying on the floor.

Cooperative mines

Habibullah, 22, who only goes by one name, works at a small tourmaline mine about 60km (37 miles) south of Parun. It is on the edge of the Pech valley, a rugged river gorge that stretches 50km (31 miles) from southeastern Nuristan down to Kunar’s provincial capital of Asadabad. Habibullah is slim, with close-cropped hair and a soft, melodious voice. He has been working as a miner for nearly three years. Before that, he struggled to earn a living as a daily labourer in Kabul.

“Recently, I sold one stone that was about the size of my little finger, with a very rich green colour, for about 300,000 Afghanis (about $3,530),” he says, sitting in a small wooden shack near the mine.

Such a large sum can be life-changing for a family used to living on an average Afghan labouring income of about $3.30 per day.

But, like most mines in Kunar and Nuristan, Habibullah’s is a cooperative, and he did not get to keep all of this money – a significant portion went to paying for fuel and equipment costs. And any profits from the mines are divided between not just the miners, but also any outside investors. At Abid’s mine, for example, a local businessman provides fuel for the generator, another the machine itself, while another provides some of the high-cost tools like a jackhammer which allow the mine to continue running. These men take a larger cut of the profits even though they are not the ones sweating in the mine each day. The Taliban takes its cut of profits, too.

Tunnel collapses and other dangers

Habibullah knows finding such a valuable stone can come at a high cost. In January 2022, he and another miner were nearly killed when a faulty fuse caused a stick of dynamite to detonate while they were still inside the tunnel. “The fuse burned much faster than it was supposed to, and by the time we realised what was happening, we didn’t have time to get out,” he recalls. The explosion caused part of the tunnel to collapse, and Habibullah had to carry his friend out on his back. He points to a cluster of scars on his right wrist from the accident. “A reminder,” he says, with a wry smile. His friend was partially blinded in one eye.

Tunnel collapses are common in these mines, even without the extra danger from faulty fuses. Hoping to dig as quickly as possible, the men seldom place wooden beams to reinforce tunnel walls, and air extraction systems are all but non-existent, leading to many lung and eye problems among longtime miners from gases and air particles in the mines. Many of the men in Abid’s mine were already beginning to develop joint, muscle and lung problems after only a few months of mining.

Despite the risks, the workers say men continue to flock to the mines as they are the only means of income.

Back in Parun, Abid says that he is one of the lucky ones.

“Most of the time the income we earn from mining is enough to cover the costs of food and basic necessities for ourselves and our families. Many people can’t even earn enough to feed their families,” he says. “Most of us working at this mine have some land and some animals, so we are not in such a bad situation, we can still get food even when we don’t find lots of stones. But there are lots of people who don’t have anything to fall back on to.”

‘I’ll be here every day’

Abid says that his privately run collective waits until they have sold at least 100,000 Afghanis (about $1,169) worth of gemstones before distributing the money. “One percent goes to the local villagers, two percent to the government, one percent to local madrassas. Thirteen percent covers the costs of the equipment we use, including repairs and upkeep. Ten percent covers the cost of the petrol for our generator and the remainder is divided among the miners and those who contributed important tools to the job, such as the drill and generator,” Abid explains.

Over six months, the mine earned about 1 million Afghanis ($11,689). “It’s better than many other people earn, but it’s still not much,” he says.

“In a good month where we are lucky and find lots of high-quality stones, this mine can earn several hundred thousand Afghanis. But some months, we don’t find any quality stones at all, and we can’t even cover the basic operating costs of the mine,” Abid explains. “Some mines go for months or even years without making a profit. We can’t afford to do that.”

As the miners finish work at the end of the day, the blue sky turning crimson, they gather at the edge of the river near the mine entrance to carefully clean their newly found gemstones. Among them are two or three high-quality tourmalines. It wasn’t the most successful day, but it was far from the worst, either.

The profit margins of running a small mine like this are razor thin, and the rates of tax demanded by the Taliban are rising. In March 2023, the Taliban administration doubled the share of profits that it takes from each mine — roughly six times as much as each miner earns. “It’s going to keep going up if the economic situation doesn’t change,” Abid says.

Until August this year, Abid and his fellow miners have found and sold enough gemstones to support their families and now, having worked through the previous mine, have moved onto a new site in the area. Abid says the number of new miners continues to increase in Nuristan due to joblessness and, although cost-of-living prices have begun to decrease from a peak in mid-2022, many families still struggle to cover basic costs.

Despite the hard work and rising taxes, Abid is determined to continue mining. “As long as there are stones to find, I’ll be here every day,” he reflects. “It’s a way for me and my family to survive, and that’s not something I can turn away from.”

Millions of Afghans have fled persecution and poverty since the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021, and many are stuck in limbo in countries around the world with few rights and freedoms and with no hope for a better future.

Nearly 3.6 million Afghans left the country from 2021 to 2022 amid a humanitarian crisis, the majority of them escaping to neighbouring countries, according to data shared by the International Organization for Migration.

It is estimated that since 2021, nearly 100,000 Afghans have been resettled in the United States and Canada while another 380,000 Afghans have found their way to European countries, but many of them are still waiting for permanent residency and a path to citizenship.

Here are some of their stories:

Lamha Nabizada, US

Lamha Nabizada is thankful she and her family have been able to make it to the US after the Taliban takeover, but she said it has also been a lonely struggle.

“We are happy that we are here. We are alive, and we are secure,” the 28-year-old said from Maryland, where she lives with her parents and younger brother. “But there are many difficulties and no one to guide us.”

Given her master’s degree in business administration and English language skills, she has been largely responsible for navigating through a complex US immigration system for her family while simultaneously finding suitable housing, working and sorting the logistics of everyday life.

Lahma’s family was targeted by the Taliban before Kabul fell because her brother, Khushnood Nabizada, worked in the media and the government.

Months before the Taliban takeover, an explosive was planted on his car in Kabul, but the 36-year-old escaped unharmed.

During the chaotic foreign evacuations, the Nabizada family – nine people, including three children – were able to use a contact at the US embassy to board flights first to Qatar, where they spent one night, and then to Germany, where they spent more than a week.

After arriving in the US on August 26, 2021, Lahma along with her family members stayed for seven months at a military base in Wisconsin, sleeping in an open barracks with 60 people.

“There were men and women there, so families put up curtains to be more comfortable,” she recalled.

On the base, she taught English and served as an interpreter at legal clinics serving recently arrived Afghans. Still, she said, she has found it difficult to find free or low-cost legal representation for her own family.

That help is crucial for the family to remain in the US. Lamha has applied for asylum, and like thousands of other Afghans, her application remains pending.

Her parents, ages 58 and 56, are on humanitarian parole, a temporary status granted by the US government to tens of thousands of the more than 100,000 Afghans who have relocated to the country in the past two years. The vast majority came in the immediate wake of the US withdrawal.

The two-year status allows people to work and receive some government support but provides no legal pathway to residency or citizenship. The US government recently launched an extension of the programme for another two years, but longer-term stability has remained elusive.

Lately, Lamha’s attention has turned to another looming deadline – the September 9 expiration of her work authorisation. She currently teaches English to refugees in Maryland as part of her work with a non-profit.

She should legally be able to extend the work approval, but she has struggled to receive the appropriate forms from the US government, underscoring the difficulty of navigating a labyrinthine system even for the most educated Afghans.

“I’m so worried because if I lose my job we cannot afford our food, our rent, our bills, nothing,” she told Al Jazeera, adding that she is the sole breadwinner for her parents and brother. “I am the only one working and paying the bills. I don’t have any savings.”

Longer term, she imagines a life somewhat like what she had achieved in Afghanistan, where she had overcome countless barriers to receive her education and a job as a business development executive at Afghanistan’s first private insurance company. She feels those qualifications are not valued in her new home.

“I know that this is a good country and it is a land of opportunity, but it’s going very hard for us,” she said.

“I want to find a good job like I had. … I’m really under too much pressure and worry about my life. What will happen in the future?”

Khatera Hashmi, India:

Policewoman Khatera Hashmi was moved to India for treatment after she was allegedly shot, stabbed and blinded by Taliban fighters in 2020.

The 34-year-old is now living in New Delhi in a one-room apartment and is still recovering from her injuries. The United Nations refugee agency pays her a monthly honorarium, but that’s not enough to support her two-year-old daughter and husband, Mohammad Nabi Hashmi, now that the Taliban is in power and the Afghan government stopped paying her wages.

“I used to get a salary even while I was recovering that helped us. There were also Afghan colleagues and friends from civil society who were providing us support. But then the Taliban took over and everything stopped,” she said.

Hashmi applied for asylum in the US soon after the fall of the Afghan government. She has also had multiple interviews for resettlement with the International Organization for Migration, but she has not heard from them since.

“It has been two years, but they won’t even tell us how long it will be before we are given a result or are relocated,” she said.

Hashmi resorted to protesting in April at the office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to demand a swift response to her case.

“I spent four nights outside the UNHCR office in New Delhi. Their guards removed me forcefully, but what are we supposed to do? We have been waiting in uncertainty about our future,” she said.

“All we are asking for is a way to survive this situation with dignity and for a better future for our children than the one we had.”

Hashmi says she was attacked by the Taliban for joining the Afghan police forces.

“I had witnessed how hard it was for women in Afghanistan to seek justice. Even going to the police to get help is such a challenge for women,” she told Al Jazeera.

With the support of her husband, the former tailor from the southern province of Ghazni enrolled for police training during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Hashmi said that less than three months into service in June 2020, she and her husband started receiving threats from the Taliban.

When the threats intensified, she was offered a transfer to Kabul. But before she could move, two men attacked her.

“They shot at me several times and also stabbed me in the face with a sharp object. They left me to die,” she recalled.

“The Taliban punished me for the crime of being a woman.”

Hashmi, who was pregnant at the time of the attack, gave birth in March 2021 while recovering in India. Her husband cannot take a permanent job because he has to take care of her and the child.

They receive 9,500 rupees ($114) every month from the UNHCR, but it isn’t sufficient, so the family lives on debt and charity.

“Our rent alone is 11,000 rupees [$132]. My medicines cost about 6,000 [$72] every month. Then there is expenditures for our food and other expenses,” she said.

Hashmi said she has not been able to pay her rent or electricity bills. “We are fortunate to have a patient landlord, but how long can he also tolerate not getting an income?” she asked.

The prolonged wait to find stability is taking a toll on Hashmi.

“My life is over, but at least my daughter can have opportunities that I didn’t. It is all I want. I am living for her.”

Shahid, Pakistan

Shahid took shelter in neighbouring Pakistan after the Taliban seized power. But life in Islamabad has been anything but easy for him, his wife and their three children.

“We came to Pakistan with nearly nothing in our hands. The little savings we brought with us is all gone,” said Shahid, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym for security reasons.

Shahid is eligible for a US relocation programme for Afghans who worked for the American military or aid agencies. But he has been waiting for two years to hear back from the US government.

The 35-year-old has also applied to other European nations for asylum but with no luck.

Shahid said he feels abandoned by the Western countries for whom he worked despite risks to his life.

“The wait and the unknown have been torturous,” he said.

They have also caused problems in Pakistan.

“It has been very challenging to renew my visa here. But even with all my documents in order, I have been detained twice in the last few months,” he said, adding that he had to pay bribes to be released.

Shahid, who worked as a development professional, said he received numerous threats from Taliban commanders for his work in southern Afghanistan.

“They called me an infidel for working with Americans and the Afghan government. They referred to me as a slave of the foreigners,” he told Al Jazeera.

A few weeks before the Taliban seized Kabul, Shahid lost a close friend when a bomb attached to their vehicle detonated in the heart of the Afghan capital. He survived by mere chance, having taken a different car to work that day.

After the Taliban returned to power, they stepped up the threats against him, Shahid said.

“When they entered Kabul, my friends and I had to go underground. I started getting text messages and phone calls saying they were coming to kill me. I couldn’t go home because I was afraid they might kill my family, too,” he said.

Shahid failed to make it on to the evacuation flights conducted by foreign governments and had to frequently change locations to avoid capture.

“Then the Taliban started door-to-door searches and reached our neighbourhood. I knew if they caught me, I would be recognised and arrested and disappeared like so many others we have known. I asked my wife to pack a small bag of essentials, and we slipped away somehow with our kids,” he said.

Shahid headed straight to the border to enter Pakistan. “We decided to go to Pakistan, hoping that at least there we could appeal to one of the governments who were our allies to help us get to safety,” he said.

Shahid and his family crossed the border on foot. Two years later, he is deep in debt and has barely any resources to survive. His biggest concern is the future of his children, especially his daughter.

“My children were expelled from school because we couldn’t pay their fees. My daughter is a very smart girl, and she has the potential to become a very successful young woman. I want that for her. But it won’t be possible in Afghanistan or living in limbo in Pakistan,” he said.

He appealed to the US and other foreign governments for help.

Yaqoob Khaliqi, United Kingdom

Yaqoob Khaliqi, who worked for a US-funded NGO, arrived in Britain in October 2021.

The 30-year-old and his wife, Khkula Sherzad, have “indefinite leave to remain” status, a legal arrangement that allows people to live, work and study in the UK for as long as they like. They may eventually use it to apply for British citizenship. Sherzad was granted entry into the UK on the grounds that she had been employed by BBC Pashto as a journalist.

They live in Nottingham, where he works for the International Rescue Committee, a charity that helps people affected by humanitarian crises. In September, Khaliqi will begin his studies for a master’s degree in international law at Oxford Brookes University.

Khaliqi worked as a translator for the International Development Law Organization in Kabul.

“We translated the laws, regulations, and we worked together with the Afghan government to improve the laws,” he told Al Jazeera.

Before the Taliban takeover, Khaliqi also worked for five years as a freelance journalist with local TV stations.

“The Taliban targeted people who worked for the government and at the same time those of us who worked with international organisations,” he said.

“I was concerned about my security and safety. That time was really difficult for me. In the morning, when I was going to the office, I didn’t think that I would make it alive,” he said. “Each moment and each minute, there was a possibility of being targeted by someone.”

His concerns grew after Ghani fled the country. With no president at the helm of the country, for Khaliqi, it became a choice between the Taliban and complete anarchy.

“There was a lot of concerns that shops and properties might be looted,” Khaliqi said. “I wanted the Taliban to come as soon as possible to the city, to go to all the government institutions, especially for maintaining the peace.”

Suddenly, “there was no place to hide from them,” Khaliqi said. “No one understood what would happen next. Everything was unclear.”

A month after the fall of Kabul, Khaliqi and Sherzad received a message from the British government that they had been granted permission to travel to the UK. They flew to Islamabad on September 25, 2021 and arrived in the UK a month later.

Since leaving Afghanistan, the couple have had a baby girl.

“My daughter can get an education here in the UK, but I hope she, together with other Afghan girls, get their higher education in our homeland,” Khaliqi said. “It will help build a brighter future for the Afghan people.”

It has been roughly a year and a half since Saber Assadi fled Afghanistan for Iran with his wife, but he has been scrambling for months to leave again.

This time, he wants to go to Brazil on a special humanitarian visa, something he discovered on YouTube. But for now, he is stuck.

The 30-year-old, a Shia Muslim, is originally from the eastern province of Parwan and belongs to the Hazara ethnic group, which has increasingly been attacked by armed groups.

He has a degree in computer science, and he and his wife have been working hard to get their documents in order, so Assadi believes they stand a decent chance to get a visa, but nothing is guaranteed.

“The only thing left is to get a birth certificate for my daughter, who was born in Iran. She has just turned one year old,” Assadi told Al Jazeera.

He left Afghanistan about six months after the Taliban takeover. Its economy had been run into the ground due to its international isolation and offered few economic opportunities for educated Afghans, such as Assadi, who tried his hand at several jobs, from running a travel agency to exporting goods such as saffron to Pakistan and importing clothing from there.

Besides the economic hardships, Assadi also faced threats for being Hazara, and he feared the Taliban might target him for having worked with foreign companies.

He travelled to Iran after failing to secure a spot among Afghan refugees transported to Qatar in the aftermath of the Taliban takeover.

He may no longer be physically at risk in Iran, but he and his family have been presented with a new set of challenges that overshadow any future prospects.

“I see no hope for a future in Iran,” Assadi said.

“I’ve had friends and acquaintances move to Brazil. I’m told you can get a passport after a few years, but I feel like here [in Iran], you could stay for 50 years and not get it.”

Like many other Afghans, Assadi has also found himself struggling to make ends meet as Iran’s economy – targeted by harsh US sanctions – has been struggling with runaway inflation, squeezing most Iranians.

Despite his education and past work experience, he initially worked at construction sites. These jobs are often the only ones available to Afghan refugees in Iran, especially as their numbers have soared by millions since the Taliban takeover. According to government estimates, five million to six million Afghan refugees live in Iran.

After months of searching, though, Assadi has now managed to find work at a centre in Tehran that facilitates consular services for Afghan citizens. But he said his salary is barely enough to support his family. Due to high rent prices, he lives in Karaj, about 50km (30 miles) from Tehran and spends up to four hours each day on his commute.

“When you are forced to live outside your home country, you want to secure a future for yourself, or at the very least make sure your children can have a future,” Assadi said.

Aina J Khan contributed to this report from London, Maziar Motamedi from Tehran and Joseph Stepansky from Washington, DC