KABUL: A dozen Afghan Sikhs gathered Monday in a room behind the charred ruins of their temple in Kabul, hoping to be swiftly evacuated having finally given up on the country of their birth.
“There is no future for us here. I have lost all hope,” said Ragbir Singh, who was wounded when gunmen stormed the temple Saturday in an attack claimed by Daesh.
“Everywhere we are under threat.”
When the Taliban seized power in August, many Sikhs sought refuge at the complex, living communally or in family groups scattered around the building.
The Sikh community had been a target before.
In March 2020, at least 25 people were killed when gunmen stormed a different temple in Kabul.
And in 2018 at least 19 people, most of them Sikhs were killed by a suicide bombing in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
Both attacks were claimed by Daesh, which regularly targets members of Afghanistan’s minority communities — including Shiites and Sufis.
The number of Sikhs and Hindus living in Afghanistan had dwindled to around 200 by late last year, compared with about half a million in the 1970s.
Most of those who remained were traders involved in selling herbal medicines and electronic goods brought from India and Pakistan.
For Manmohan Singh Sethi, who was born in Afghanistan, the temple was not just a place of worship, but home to the entire Sikh community.
