A former Afghan minister now works as a bicycle courier: The job is…

He told a news website that Syed Sadat worked for the Afghan government for two years before deciding to leave his job in 2018 “due to disagreements with members of the president’s circle”. Al Jazeera. “I was hoping other politicians would follow the same path, working with the people instead of just hiding.”

At the end of last year, Sadat finally moved to Europe, away from Afghanistan. Although he has British (dual) citizenship and lived in the UK for several years, the former minister went to Germany. Sadat believes that with his background and degrees in communication and information technology, he can quickly start working in the same sector, but the lack of language skills works against him. “The German language is the most important part,” he says. “I study German for four hours every day at a language school.”

bike courier

After class, he goes down the streets of Leipzig by bike and works as a bike courier for Lieferando, a meal delivery service. It appears to be “a job like any other”. At first it was hard to get used to cycling in traffic. But the more I do it, the better I master it.

Sadat’s story came to light after thousands of other Afghans had sought to flee their homeland since the Taliban’s return to power. The Sadat family also wants to leave. It is not clear if this will work. Most evacuation missions have since ceased.