S’pore doctor who worked in Afghanistan for 18 years worries for friends there

SINGAPORE – In March last year, Dr Wee Teck Young left Afghanistan for Singapore after almost 18 years in the country.

But he has continued to stay in touch with friends there, and of the 40 people he has been messaging regularly since the Taleban retook Kabul last Sunday, only a few have dared to leave their homes.

“So many people there are petrified. They are afraid that someone will kill them, or kill their family,” said Dr Wee on Wednesday.

The 52-year-old doctor moved to the Bamiyan province in Afghanistan in 2004 to provide healthcare and other volunteer work for an international public health non-governmental organisation. He moved to Kabul about seven years later.

Dr Wee became such a part of the local community that they named him Hakim, which means local doctor.

Dr Wee, who is single, came back here when the pandemic began, to be closer to his parents and because the outbreak of the disease in Kabul made it unsafe to remain.

But not a day goes by that he does not think of the friends he left behind. He tries to provide them emotional support through voice and video calls on secure channels.

“At least with the Internet, we get to stay connected,” he said.

One of his friends mustered up the courage to go outside on Wednesday (Aug 18) to find food for his family, said Dr Wee, who checked in with him afterwards to make sure he was all right.

“He has a very traumatic experience with the Taleban: His father was killed in a Taleban attack in Kabul years ago,” said Dr Wee.

“Even with that trauma, he went out to get food. I spoke to him on video, and he said: ‘Hakim, I went out! I was fearful, but when I came back I felt calmer.'”

In the days leading up to the Taleban’s breach of Kabul, Dr Wee said, panic began to set in among those who were there. Many of his friends told him they could not sleep for fear that bombs would fall on their city at any moment.

“They told me that they were imagining all sorts of things, that there would soon be shooting and that they could soon be gone,” he said.

Asked how he felt about the turmoil in a country where he had spent a third of his life, Dr Wee said he was saddened by how the international community had failed the Afghan people, and that a military solution was never going to bring peace to the country or ensure that people were taken care of.

He said he hoped international organisations would seek a way forward for the country that would fulfil the United Nations Charter “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”, as the organisation’s founding document signed in 1945 pledged.

As for himself, Dr Wee said he will continue as much as he can to listen to his friends tell of their daily plight, in the hope it can help the people he has known for years.

He told The Straits Times he is not doing any paid work at the moment, but is continuing volunteer work virtually.

He also started a new initiative called Love Bridges All, which seeks to build connections between people and with the planet in the giving of house plants.

A firm believer in the power of empathy and emotional support, he advised Singaporeans who are keen to help to link up with reliable international and local Afghan organisations.

In addition to giving money to fund their humanitarian work, they can also work with these groups to provide a listening ear and show their support for the people there.

“Through these organisations, listen to their stories… Give them the human support that you can,” he said.

“Just listening and being there can go some way to calm them down and help them know they’re not alone. Afghanistan is a country of 34 million people, but each encounter is valuable.”