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06/09/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 07/09/2024 15:34

Introducing BU’s Newest Terriers: Khalid Karim

Introducing BU's Newest Terriers: Khalid Karim

After a harrowing escape from Afghanistan, this freshman says he has "a new purpose in life"

Khalid Karim (CAS'28) survived the 2021 evacuation of Afghanistan and lived in a refugee camp before moving to the United States. Three years later, he is a BU freshman, majoring in computer science.

Student Profile

Introducing BU's Newest Terriers: Khalid Karim

After a harrowing escape from Afghanistan, this freshman says he has "a new purpose in life"

September 6, 2024
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This fall, 3,300 freshmen and 926 transfer students begin their careers at Boston University. As the 2024-2025 school year begins, we bring you some of their stories.

On August 14, 2021, Khalid Karim woke up to panic in the streets outside his home in Kabul, Afghanistan. Looking out his bedroom window, he saw thousands of people flooding through the city. Cars were at a standstill as throngs of people sought to escape, hugging suitcases and holding loved ones' hands to keep from being separated. He watched as Afghan soldiers exited their military vehicles, tore off their US-affiliated uniforms, and abandoned their posts.

"When I saw that," he says, "I knew what was going on."

BU's Newest Terriers: Facts and Figures

A quick snapshot of BU's newest Terriers:
The Class of 2028 was selected from an applicant pool of 78,769. Their average GPA is 3.9 and average SAT scores 1471. They hail from 49 states (sorry, Wyoming!), Washington, D.C., Guam, and Puerto Rico, as well as 86 countries. Among the entering freshmen, 20 percent are first-gen students and 23 percent are international students; 60 percent of the class is female and 40 percent is male.

As for this year's entering transfer students, 24 percent are the first in their families to attend college and 19 percent are international students; 87 percent are enrolling from four-year colleges and 13 percent from two-year colleges.

In the aftermath of the chaotic US withdrawal from the country, Afghan citizens weren't expecting the Taliban to make landfall in the nation's capital for another six months. Privately, everyone hoped the news was wrong-that the Taliban wouldn't come at all-but now they'd encircled the city, and Karim (CAS'28), his family, and thousands of others were staring at their worst nightmare.

It was the first day of the fall of Kabul, a now-historic disaster that led to one of the largest evacuation airlifts in history. By the end of the US withdrawal from the country two and a half weeks later, approximately 124,000 Afghan citizens had been airlifted, while thousands more remained trapped in the country.

After a few days of painful uncertainty, the Karim family got word of an evacuation, and they packed their belongings and headed together to Hamid Karzai International Airport. After abandoning their car in the choked streets, they attempted to get through the crowd on foot-which proved to be a mistake. Taliban fighters, in an attempt to keep people from fleeing, opened fire on the mass of panicked citizens.

"Five hundred feet from the [airport entrance] there were 10,000 people, so it took us an hour to get to the door, bullets [flying] the whole way," Karim remembers. "At one point, we only went forward maybe five feet in two hours. We couldn't even walk; you would walk a step in 20 minutes, and then another step 20 minutes later."

Karim's mother, Laila, had a bad knee and needed to be braced by her children as they moved through the crowd. Eventually, Karim's siblings, aunt, and cousins decided to take her home. That left Karim and one brother, both uncertain that they would make it through the gates of the airport. They waited for nearly 10 hours for an opportunity to escape, trapped in a crowd between Taliban and American forces, amid bullets and tear gas.

As a result of the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, some 120,000-plus Afghan citizens were airlifted from Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, while many thousands more remained trapped under Taliban control. Photo by Wali Sabawoon/AP Images

"We went to a different door, and I remember a huge wastewater pit, maybe four feet wide and a mile long, that we were trying to get to, when out of nowhere, there's this explosion," Karim says. "We were not as close, and we weren't really injured, but we were buried under some people. That was it for us."

Karim and his brother escaped and returned home, where they stayed for two weeks. During that time, he cautiously went back to doing the things he used to do, playing soccer and watching the news, and tried not to think too much about the future. Then, on one of the last days of the airlift, one of his brothers convinced the family to try again-and all of a sudden, they were walking back to the airport, carrying nothing but backpacks and one another.

At the airport gates, "they would open the door for maybe five minutes and then close it, open it for another five minutes, and then close it again," he recalls. "We got close enough to the door to where I was able to squeeze in through the crack, and I also pulled a neighbor's kid with me, because his dad pushed him towards me."

That was it. They were through. But they were alone-a 15-year-old and an 8-year-old-and they were about to leave everything behind.

Karim and his neighbor's son, Sudais, boarded a crowded military plane with nothing but their papers in hand, and as they took off from the tarmac, both boys looked out the window as the life they used to know receded in the distance.

"The city where I grew up was alive. It was pretty, the food was good, and the people were good," Karim says. "Hopefully there'll be a day that will be better. Our people always came back victorious."

Their next stop was Germany, where a chickenpox outbreak forced them to stay in a makeshift camp for 21 days. Karim remembers the freezing cold as almost worse than the airlift, the food scarce, and the aid sporadic. He survived in part thanks to his fluency in English, which occasionally earned him an extra water bottle or granola bar. His case was expedited when an UNICEF worker he was talking with in English realized he was an unaccompanied minor and that he had a sister who'd been living in the United States since 2017. Aid workers were able to get in contact with her, and soon he and Sudais were slated to leave Germany.

The two went their separate ways once they reached the United States-the younger boy was off to California, and Karim to his sister in Virginia. Before he left Germany, she'd found him a scholarship to the Barrie School in Maryland, where he could board as an international student.

"In those three years I learned a lot," he says. "Everything was new."

Karim threw himself into his studies, and eventually reintroduced himself to the things he used to love: soccer, working out, making friends. When it came time to apply to colleges, he says, he found himself drawn to BU.

"Representatives from different colleges came to our school, and I remember the BU presentation was the only one I went to," he says. "My friend at home went there, and he told me to try it out. I liked everything [the rep] said about it-except the cold."

This spring, Khalid Karim (right) was reunited with his brother Seyar (left) and mother, Laila, after their immigration case was approved. Laila and Seyar now live in California. Photo courtesy of Khalid Karim

Karim applied for a QuestBridge scholarship, which offers full tuition to high-achieving students with low-income backgrounds. When he was accepted to BU, he says, he started jumping for joy in the middle of class.

"The whole school knew in a day," he says, laughing.

Meanwhile, he and his sister remained in touch with their mother and the rest of his siblings. Some had already emigrated-to Colorado, New York, and Germany-but by 2024, his mother and brother Seyar were in Pakistan, where they'd relocated for safety. This past spring, they were finally cleared to travel to the United States.

"I drove my sister's car for four hours to pick them up in New York, and then we came back to Virginia," Karim says. "It's been really hard for my mom, because I'd been away for three years, and now that I'm going to be away for another four years for college. But I had a talk with her, and she said I needed to do it."

Karim's journey to campus marks his third relocation in as many years, but the entering freshman says he can't wait to settle into life on campus. Resolute about his future, he plans to major in computer science and try out for the men's soccer team.

"Three years changed me way too much. It all started when I had to take responsibility for someone when I couldn't even take responsibility for myself," he says. "That's what I want to do after I'm done with college-help people. It gave me a new purpose in life and made me the brave, honest, and courageous person that I am today."

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  • Sophie Yarin

    Associate Editor, BU Today; Managing Editor Bostonia

    Sophie Yarin is a BU Today associate editor and Bostonia managing editor. She graduated from Emerson College's journalism program and has experience in digital and print publications as a hybrid writer/editor. A lifelong fan of local art and music, she's constantly on the hunt for stories that shine light on Boston's unique creative communities. She lives in Jamaica Plain with her partner and their cats, Ringo and Xerxes, but she's usually out getting iced coffee. Profile

  • Jackie Ricciardi

    Staff photojournalist

    Jackie Ricciardi is a staff photojournalist at BU Today and Bostonia magazine. She has worked as a staff photographer at newspapers that include the Augusta Chronicle in Augusta, Ga., and at Seacoast Media Group in Portsmouth, N.H., where she was twice named New Hampshire Press Photographer of the Year. Profile

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