Salima Mazari

Salima Mazari (born 1980) is an Afghan politician who served as district governor of Charkint District in Balkh province from 2018 to 20 August 2021, one of only three women district governors in Afghanistan. ¹ Born a refugee in Iran, she returned to Afghanistan, led her district's armed resistance to the Taliban in 2021, and escaped to the United States when the republic collapsed. ^{1 2}

Mazari was born in Iran in 1980, a refugee whose family had escaped the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. ^{1 3} She grew up in Iran, earned a degree from the University of Tehran, and worked for the International Organization for Migration before returning to Afghanistan. ¹ In her own account, she spent 30 years in Iran on a refugee card and returned in 2012 to her father's hometown in the Charkint district, later working with academic institutions in Mazar-i-Sharif. ²

In 2018 she was named district governor of Charkint District in Balkh province. ¹ As governor she formed a security commission to recruit local militias into the fight against the Taliban, and in 2020 she negotiated the surrender of over 100 Taliban soldiers in her province. ¹ She has said she survived ambushes and mines planted against her; the dangers she reports facing are recorded here as her own account and as reported by the press that interviewed her. ²

Amid the 2021 Taliban offensive she refused to flee while several other governors did, and her district put up significant resistance; until the fall of Kabul hers was one of the few districts in the country to remain unoccupied by the Taliban. ¹ In mid-August 2021, news reports expressed concern that she had been captured by the Taliban. ¹ According to subsequent reports, she was at the provincial governor's office when news of the surrender of Balkh and the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif reached her, left the district, and escaped to an undisclosed location in the United States with the help of the 2021 U.S. evacuation. ¹ The capture reports were therefore not borne out; Time's later account, by journalists involved in her escape, reported that she was never captured. ¹

Mazari settled in the American Midwest with her husband and three children, where she continues to advocate for Afghans. ² She was recognised as one of the BBC's 100 Women of 2021. ¹

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