An Afghan doctor who has lived in Ireland for more than a decade said she feared for her family’s safety after her brother was physically attacked in Co Meath earlier this month and told to “speak English”.
Fatima Abdullah (33) moved to Ireland in 2015, joining her husband, who had moved here the year before to work as a doctor. The couple and their three young children are all Irish citizens.
Abdullah’s parents and siblings moved to Ireland in 2022, after the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan in 2021.
Abdullah, who lives in Bettystown in Co Meath, had many sleepless nights worrying about her family while they were still in Afghanistan and said she felt immense relief when they moved to Ireland.
“I thought, ‘Okay, now it’s done, finally I can breathe and I can be happy. I don’t have to think or worry about them’.”
Recently, however, “things have changed drastically”, she said.
Abdullah, who is training to be a GP, said she felt very safe in Ireland until a number of recent attacks on immigrants. Some of her siblings experienced verbal abuse and, on one occasion, her sister’s hair was pulled in an unprovoked attack in Dublin city.
Earlier this month, a more serious assault occurred. Her brother, Ibrahim Samim, was allegedly headbutted by a man in a takeaway in Navan, Co Meath.
Samim (24) was ordering food after a night out when the altercation occurred.
“I placed my order in English, and then I turned towards my friends and I was chatting with them in Dari and Pashto,” he said.
These languages are spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Samim said people were standing around chatting when two men walked into the takeaway. One of the men touched his shoulder and asked him to move forward in the queue.
Samim said he stepped forward, but “the other fella pushed me” and shouted “f**king move”.
Samim said he couldn’t move forward any farther and asked the men: “Where do you want me to move?”
Samim said one of the men then headbutted him and said “speak f**king English, this is Ireland”.
Paramedics and gardaí attended the scene.
Samim was bleeding heavily, but his nose was not broken. He said he has experienced headaches and struggled to sleep since then.
Ibrahim said he was bleeding heavily after the incident on March 22nd
A Garda spokesman confirmed officers in Navan are investigating an alleged assault at a premises on Watergate Street in the town shortly before 2am on Sunday, March 22nd.
Samim works as a supervisor at a hotel in Meath and has applied to become an Irish citizen. He has many friends in Ireland and said he was grateful for the fresh start his family received here.
He said he had seen an increase in “hate” and “racism” on social media, but never expected to be assaulted.
“At the end of the day, we are all human. It doesn’t matter what colour, what language. It’s very sad for me.”
Abdullah said she and her family were shaken by the incident. Even before the assault, she had advised her siblings to avoid going to places alone or late at night. She had also asked her mother to stop wearing her headscarf in public, in case it drew negative attention.
Abdullah said the situation was obviously different but she has started to feel like she did when her family was back in Afghanistan.
“I keep on calling them, I keep on asking where they are, if they are coming back from work, if everything is okay.”
As the oldest sibling, she said she just wanted to keep her brothers and sisters safe.
Abdullah said the rise in anti-immigrant sentiment was also affecting her children. Her 10-year-old son has started to worry about the colour of his skin.
After a holiday to Spain, he was “really conscious” his skin was darker. He asked her when he would become paler again as he had seen other children with darker skin get picked on.
“If he turned a bit brown, he wouldn’t like it because he wants to be pale,” she said.
Abdullah said a lot of misinformation has been spread about immigrants online, including tropes they only come here for social welfare. Her husband has opened his own GP practice in Dublin and all of her siblings work.
As part of her training, Abdullah has worked in a number of hospitals. On one occasion in an emergency department a patient told a colleague of hers, “I don’t want to see any non-Irish doctor”.
“It was heartbreaking. But then the senior doctor said, ‘Go and tell the patient all of the doctors are non-Irish. If you want to be seen, it has to be [one of them].’”
Despite the recent assault, Abdullah said her family had no plans to move.
“Ireland is home, definitely,” she said. “I have always felt welcomed by everyone around me. It’s just recently that things have changed.”