《纽约时报》 | 花14.5美元赌命的阿富汗难民
For $14.50, Afghan Refugees Make a Desperate Bet on a Way Out
An Afghan man applying for a passport in Kabul last month. More people fleeing Afghanistan are heading for Europe and facing treacherous journeys. Credit: Shah Marai/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
KABUL, Afghanistan — The winding road to Germany starts on the outskirts of Kabul, at the Ahmad Shah Baba bus depot.
喀布尔，阿富汗。通往德国的崎岖路始于喀布尔郊外的艾赫迈德-沙-巴巴汽车站。
This is where some of the youngest and poorest Afghans hoping to migrate to Europe gather each day to leave. If they carry a backpack at all, it is usually slack, with little inside. Some have begun hearing that there is one country eager to have them.
不少最年轻却最贫穷的阿富汗人每天就在此会合，渴望移民欧洲。他们就算背着包，也多半瘪着，囊中空空——据说有一个国家愿意接纳他们。
“I am trying to go to Germany,” Abdul Javed, 16, said after buying a bus ticket. “Hopefully I will pass this test and get there.”
“我想去德国。”16岁的阿卜杜尔-贾维德买了一张巴士票。“真希望我能通过考验，到达那里。”
He stood in the depot’s small office, where a red carpet had been thrown over the counter so passengers could rest their elbows as they counted out their cash.
他站在汽车站窄小的售票厅里，柜台上搭着一条红毯子，乘客点钱时，胳膊肘儿可以支在上面。
The ticket agent, Rahmatullah, says he does not have a bus headed all the way to Munich. But the equivalent of $14.50 secures a seat on the first leg of the journey, to Nimruz, a desolate province along ’s border with .
售票员拉赫马图拉说没有汽车能一路直达慕尼黑，花14.5美元可以买个座位，到达行程的第一站尼姆鲁兹，这是阿富汗与伊朗接壤的一个荒无人烟的省份。
Until last year most of the teenagers headed toward Nimruz wanted to go no farther than , to seek work as laborers. But these days, the province is better known as the first stop on the path to Europe.
去年，大多数前往尼姆鲁兹的青年并未想过去比伊朗还远的地方讨生计。如今，尼姆鲁兹不过是欧洲之行的第一站。
Now some 40 buses depart each day to Nimruz, according to ticket agents from a range of bus companies in Kabul.
喀布尔不少汽车公司的售票员说，现在每天大概有40班巴士开往尼姆鲁兹。
The Ahmad Shah Baba service is among the most popular, having gained a reputation for fast and reckless driving that can finish the journey in 12 hours.
艾赫迈德-沙-巴巴是最吃香的，这里司机以玩命开车著称，12个小时就能抵达目的地。
When Rahmatullah thinks of how many people are leaving — every ticket he sells is a reminder — he feels wonder and sadness. “There were never this many people leaving until now,” he said.
想到那么多人离开阿富汗——每一张票都是证据，拉赫马图拉不禁惊叹，却又悲从中来。“从来没有这么多人离开。”
For a generation, Afghans had been the largest group of refugees in the world, other than . Last year, the number of Afghan refugees was overtaken by fleeing Syrians.
这些年来，阿富汗人而巴勒斯坦人构成了世界上最大的难民群体，去年阿富汗难民的数量被逃难的叙利亚人超越。
Yet Afghans are leaving at an accelerated rate. Through July, about 77,700 Afghans had reached Turkey and Europe and applied for asylum this year, compared with 58,500 for all of 2014, according to data from the United Nations.
可阿富汗人仍在加速离开。联合国数据显示，单单7月就有约77700人抵达土耳其和欧洲申请成为难民，而2014年的总数才58500。
And after Syrians, Afghans make up the largest group of the by sea this year.
今年，在38.1万渡海抵达欧洲的群体中，阿富汗仅次于叙利亚。
Many young Afghans feel a gloom settling over their future, as well as their country’s. The Taliban are gaining more territory.
许多年轻的阿富汗人对自己的未来感到迷茫，对祖国的命运同样悲观。另一方面，塔利班正在收复失地。
The departure of foreign troops and organizations has left behind a shrunken economy. The new government, now almost a year old, has done little that anyone can recall.
外国驻军和机构离开后，阿富汗经济一塌糊涂。执政将近一年的新政府无所作为。
“Some time ago, we entered into the dark ages,” said Aynullah, who sells bus tickets from a stall along the crowded highway that leads south out of Kabul, toward Kandahar, and then swoops west to Nimruz.
“不久前，我们进入黑暗时代。”阿依努拉说。他在拥挤的公路旁卖票，公路一路向南开出喀布尔，抵达坎大哈后，向西折至尼姆鲁兹。
Of all the routes to Europe, this is among the worst.
通往欧洲的路中，这条最糟糕。
Any Afghan who can afford a flight to Turkey will take it and pick up the trail from there, avoiding Iran. The border police in Iran sometimes shoot at Afghans crossing the desert, migrants and Afghan officials said.
所有能买得起机票的人都飞到土耳其，跳过伊朗，从土耳其开始征程。移民和阿富汗官员说，伊朗边境的警察有时会向穿越沙漠的阿富汗人开枪。
“There have been weeks where we have had 44 corpses sent back across the border,” Amir Mohammad Akhundzada, the former governor of Nimruz, said this year.
“几周间，有44具尸体从边境那面送回来。”尼姆鲁兹前省长阿米尔-穆罕默德-阿坤德札达今年说。
“The bodies were of people who had been in accidents, or hanged for smuggling, or shot while crossing. We are facing a major crisis.”
“有的出了事故，有的因走私被绞死，还有的干脆就是越境时被打死。我们面临着一场重大危机。”
Those who get to Turkey through Iran often join fleeing Syrians and Iraqis heading across the sea to Greece and then up through the Balkans. But most do not make it far beyond the border of Iran, at least not on their first try.
穿过伊朗的人和逃难的叙利亚人和伊拉克人一起，渡海到希腊，并北上巴尔干半岛。可大多数人都没法通过伊朗边境，至少第一次尝试多会失败。
The odds of success become clear most days at 5 p.m., when the return buses from Nimruz start to roll into the depot.
每天下午5点从尼姆鲁兹返回的大巴说明了成功几率有多低。
On a recent afternoon, one of the last passengers to stagger off a bus from Nimruz was 18-year-old Rehanullah, his face sallow from dehydration and hunger. Rehanullah, who like many Afghans uses a single name, had set out from Kabul eight days earlier.
有一天下午，18岁的里哈努拉从最后一班来自尼姆鲁兹的巴士上摇摇晃晃的走下来，他因饥肠辘辘和几近脱水而脸色灰黄。许多阿富汗人名都使用一个词，里哈努拉也一样，他八天前启程离开喀布尔。
“I didn’t have a particular country in mind — I just wanted to go,” he said.
“我也不知道具体想去哪个国家，就是想离开。”
He had grown up in Jalalabad, in Afghanistan’s east, where he worked in a mechanics shop, earning little. The war had touched his family: An older brother was killed three years ago.
他在阿富汗东部的贾拉拉巴德长大，曾在一个修理店打工，薪金微薄。战争波及到他的家庭：三年前哥哥被杀。
“I believe Europe will treat us as humans,” he said. But here, “I have nothing in my hand — nothing.”
“我相信欧洲会拿我们当人看。在这里，我什么都没有。一无所有。”
Rehanullah recalled his father’s words to him before he left home: “Yes, there is no future here. If you want to go, go.”
里哈努拉离开前父亲对他说：“对，这里没有未来。如果你想走，快走吧。”
He had set out with the equivalent of $65 in the pocket of his blue shalwar kameez, the traditional, loosefitting clothing of Afghanistan. In his backpack, he carried a pair of jeans and a T-shirt he would change into once Afghanistan was far behind him. He never got the chance.
他套上蓝色的纱丽克米兹，这是一种宽大的传统阿富汗服饰，兜里揣着大概65美元。背包里装了一条牛仔裤、一件T恤，一旦离开阿富汗，可以换上这些衣服——可他根本没机会离开。
In Nimruz, he met a smuggler who agreed to ferry him across the border. An impossible number of people squeezed into a Toyota Corolla, Rehanullah said, explaining that he was one of four in the trunk.
在尼姆鲁兹，有一个人口贩子同意把他送过边境，一辆丰田科罗拉里挤爆了人，后备箱里有四个人，他是其中之一。
The next thing he knew, the car had stopped and other passengers were bleeding. The police had fired on the car, killing two people with him, he said.
下面发生的事是这样的。车停了下来，有乘客在流血。警察朝汽车开枪，两个同伴被射杀。
After a day in jail, he was deported. He made it back to Kabul, only after persuading the bus driver to let him on for free. “I begged the driver for half an hour.”
他在牢房里呆了一天后，被遣送回境。他央求巴士司机免费把他捎回喀布尔。
It is the sort of story that is not unusual to hear as the return buses arrive. But the pessimism of the passengers lingers in the bus depot for only as long as it takes everyone to disperse.
类似故事并不新鲜，每辆回来的巴士都能听说。可众人一散，这种萦绕在公交站的悲观情绪就不在了。
The rest of the day, it is as though the people at the bus depot are bound by some communal decision to be optimistic, and they all keep worries to themselves.
一天中的其他时间，汽车站的人好像被某种要保持乐观的集体决定绑架，只把忧虑留在自己内心。
At the depot’s entrance, a group of young men squatted, discussing the price of a ticket.
汽车站的入口蹲着一群年轻男子，正在讨论票价。
Sher Mohammad, one of the bus drivers, watched them with a touch of pity. “Look at them,” he said. “All are 16, 17, 18, 19.”
大巴司机谢尔-穆罕默德用怜悯的眼光看着他们。“瞧瞧他们，十六七岁、十八九岁。”
“They are boys,” Mr. Mohammad said, “and they think they will have a better life — and their parents encourage them to leave.”
“他们都是孩子，他们认为自己会有更好的生活，父母也鼓励他们离开。”
Rahmatullah, the ticket agent, often sells enough tickets in a day to fill up two, sometimes three buses, each with 57 seats.
售票员拉赫马塔拉一天卖的票够填满两辆甚至三辆巴士，每辆巴士57个座。
But soon, he said, he may sell his last ticket and board a bus himself, heading toward Germany, by way of Nimruz.
他说很快，他也要给自己买一张票，假道尼姆鲁兹前往德国了。
He knows the odds better than anyone, but he makes the equivalent of only $11 a day, not nearly enough to skip Iran by flying to Turkey.
他比其他人更知道机会渺茫，可他每天只赚11美元，买不起跳过伊朗飞到土耳其去的机票。
“It’s too dangerous to go by road, but I can’t afford air travel,” he said. “God willing, I will go soon.”
“走路过去太危险了，可我买不起机票。上帝保佑，我马上要出发了。”