Yes, I was there. The bulk of my research was done in 2012 and 2013, but I started going in 2009. Yes, it was relatively peaceful when I was there, but there has been a steady decrease in security for Hazaras over that time, which Mr. Rajabi touched on.
We had probably the first really big mosque bombing targeting Hazaras in 2011, I believe. For a few years, it seemed as though maybe that was an isolated incident, but there was concurrently an increase in targeted attacks of Hazaras, particularly travelling by road between cities and between districts. So when people were in urban centres, they might be relatively safe, but when travelling through areas particularly where the Taliban had more control, they could potentially be removed from the transportation, whether it was private or public transportation, and, if they were identified as Hazaras, kidnapped and often killed, including children. There were a number of children. One very famous incident included a nine-year-old girl.
So this started ticking up. Then, I think around 2016, we saw a really big uptick in mass killings, suicide bombings and other types of bombings and, in some cases, shootings and attacks not limited to mosques but involving—and Mr. Rajabi got into this as well—civilian targets, soft targets like schools and educational centres, sports centres and the maternity hospital, which, I would like to emphasize, had an incredibly symbolic significance if we're talking about genocide and if we think about killing mothers who were in the act of giving birth and newborn babies being shot and killed face to face. It's quite incredible to think of and, I think, can really make us see what the intent of those carrying out those attacks was.
So there was just a steady increase from then, really, until the Taliban took control. With the Taliban in control, we had a moment of instability. Now there's a different type of danger, I think. A number of large-scale attacks have happened, but I think more important is the fact that everything has been turned on its head.
We've heard the testimony about what has happened in Mazar-e-Sharif. People who very clearly want to exterminate Hazaras now hold the reins of power. For the most part, they haven't acted yet, and they're just placing blame for the attacks that have happened on ISIS and on other groups.
We also see an erosion of Hazara security in other areas, with people being removed from land that was historically theirs, displaced in rural areas and also in cities, and old disputes that date back decades—sometimes even a hundred years—concerning Hazara land that was given out, even back in the 1800s, to other ethnic groups, which Hazaras later managed to reclaim and which is now being taken back by those groups.
The Taliban almost always falls on the side of the group that is not Hazaras, and of course there's no Hazara representation in the Taliban government to capture this.
Yes, the situation is getting quite bad.