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DODGING bombs dropping from the sky and land mines hidden in the ground, Dr Danish Shojai began her escape from the country she loved in a bid for a safe and peaceful life.
It was 1988 and Afghanistan had descended into civil war, after years of fighting between the Russian-backed government and the resistance fighters, or mujaheddin.
The young doctor and her family -- including four brothers and two sisters -- abandoned most of their possessions and left the Afghan capital, Kabul, in the early hours of the morning to begin a four-day trek over the mountains to Pakistan. They were among millions of refugees who poured out of Afghanistan into neighbouring countries during the decades of conflict.
"Many people were dying and buildings were destroyed, so we escaped to Pakistan," says Dr Shojai, one of the first doctors to take part in a new Federal Government project, run by the RACGP, that is designed to identify international medical graduates who are not working as doctors and help them make the transition to Australian practice.
Few of the 700 or so doctors identified by the project will have stories as dramatic as Dr Shojai's. Her flight to Pakistan was partly by car, partly on foot, with the family staying overnight at private homes that the owners had turned into "small motels" to take advantage of the exodus. "Sometimes they were free, sometimes they cost," Dr Shojai says. "It depended how much money you had, how you escaped. Some people walked -- it took 20 days to cross the mountains by walking -- and some people were on horses."
The road between Kabul and Pakistan had been closed to prevent people leaving Afghanistan-- it was a frightening time.
"There were bombs and planes everywhere, and mines -- a lot of mines -- to stop people from escaping," Dr Shojai says.
"Boys over 18 were not allowed to go to Pakistan because the Russians wanted them to fight against the mujaheddin, and the mujaheddin wanted them to fight against the government."
As she tells her story in the living room of her western Sydney home, carpeted in richly coloured Afghan rugs,...