Abuzar Ahmad Fundraiser

On Thursday, March 20 at 8:30 p.m., the life of little Abuzar Ahmad, not yet three years old, was upended. At that moment four Taliban assassins burst into the restaurant of the Serena Hotel in Kabul, where he was in the company of his father Sardar, his mother Homaira, his five-year-old brother Omar, and his six-year-old sister Nilofar. Abuzar is the only member of his family to survive the attack. Even that is a miracle: seriously wounded in the head, torso and leg by bullet fragments, he was immediately taken into surgery in Kabul's EMERGENCY hospital. For several days he hovered between life and death but was saved by the hospital's brilliant doctors. Abuzar’s father, Sardar Ahmad, 40 years old, was a journalist much respected in the news media community in Afghanistan and, for a decade, a pillar of the Agence France-Presse bureau in Kabul. The terrible, violent death of Sardar and most of his family deeply shocked and saddened his colleagues in Afghanistan and throughout AFP’s global network, and elicited expressions of sympathy from around the world. The miraculous survival of Sardar’s youngest child has kindled in many a feeling of hope, and an urge to help.

Now discharged from hospital and newly-arrived in Toronto, Canada (on April 30) to begin a new life with relatives far from the violence that tore his family apart,  the toddler will need emotional and financial assistance if he is to have a chance of leading a normal life.

 While all his immediate needs are being taken care of, AFP is organizing a global collection of donations to help ensure little Abuzar's future wellbeing. Let’s help Abuzar build a new life!