It had been two years since Riaz and Zarmeena Sardar Khil had seen their households. In 2019, the husband and spouse and their child daughter, Lina, had emigrated from a rural city in Afghanistan to hunt security within the U.S., forsaking their siblings. However in mid-December 2021, their households lastly had event for a reunion. Riaz’s brother, and Zarmeena’s brothers, had been U.S. contractors and had been evacuated from Afghanistan as U.S. troops withdrew from the nation and it fell underneath Taliban management. That they had made it to San Antonio, the place the Sardar Khils had settled. As Riaz wrapped up his shift at a logistics firm on December 20, he was eagerly awaiting his first full household dinner since arriving within the U.S.
Round 5:30 p.m., nevertheless, Zarmeena, who was pregnant with a second baby, known as, and sounded frantic: she couldn’t discover Lina anyplace. The three-year-old had been frolicking within the courtyard pavilion of their condominium complicated, close to the Medical Middle, the place a scrum of Afghan youngsters often ran round enjoying. The 2-story complicated is a maze of slim footpaths and three-foot stone retaining partitions that provide loads of methods for youths to vanish from any single line of sight; often there have been sufficient eyes on the courtyard that somebody locally may maintain monitor of the youngsters. However on that day, nobody noticed what occurred to Lina. Not one of the different youngsters. Nobody residing within the surrounding residences. No surveillance digital camera.
Zarmeena known as her husband when it grew to become clear their baby was not in any of the same old out of doors areas. She knew it was one of many shortest days of the yr, and it will quickly be darkish. The household canceled dinner and spent the night collectively going door to door within the complicated. Possibly, Riaz thought at first, one of many newer households had let her in, not sure who her dad and mom had been, and didn’t know how one can get in contact. However after they accomplished their rounds of the complicated at round 7:15 p.m., with no signal of Lina, they known as the police to report their baby lacking. At 10:30 p.m., the Texas Division of Public Security issued an Amber Alert. Many in San Antonio’s Afghan neighborhood crackled with panic that night time, exchanging texts and messages in a determined, and finally fruitless, seek for data.
The Afghan neighborhood in San Antonio is small, with a inhabitants of round 600. Fewer than 1 / 4 are refugees, however many have been attempting to assist relations get out of Afghanistan following the U.S. army withdrawal. Refugee resettlement businesses in San Antonio assist these relations settle into condominium complexes the place they’ll kind playgroups and assist networks amongst others who communicate their language or come from their area. Many afternoons moms and kids collect in parks, and swing by each other’s residences unannounced. For the Sardar Khils, it was a close to facsimile of life again dwelling of their rural city, with its open-door insurance policies and courtyard playgroups. However when Lina went lacking, and days stretched into months, that imaginative and prescient of re-creating life again dwelling was shattered.
“We got here right here for a superb life,” Riaz Sardar Khil informed Texas Month-to-month three months after Lina went lacking, his pal Lawang Mangal translating from Pashto. “Now I can not say it is a secure place for kids. Not for me. Not for my household.”
The night time Lina disappeared, Pamela Allen noticed the Amber Alert on her cellphone in Boerne, 35 miles northwest of San Antonio. Allen runs Eagles Flight Advocacy and Outreach, a nonprofit that works with immigrants as they settle into america and sometimes serves as a professional bono liaison between households in disaster and state businesses such because the police or Youngster Protecting Providers. She had expertise with lacking kids instances, and at first thought Lina can be discovered by the morning at one other household’s home.
When she awoke the subsequent morning, nevertheless, board members and others she had labored with on previous instances known as to counsel she supply her providers to the Sardar Khils. She contacted the household and was quickly a daily fixture at their aspect. She’s no stranger to intense conditions, she mentioned, however what she’s skilled alongside the household the final six months is one thing new. “I had no concept the craziness that might ensue.”
Because the disappearance grew to become information, Afghans across the metropolis started to fret about focused discrimination. Hessena Sadat, who lives in a unique condominium complicated throughout city the place many Afghan immigrants reside and didn’t know the Sardar Khils, mentioned the worry was speedy. Despite the fact that a lot of the Afghans in San Antonio are within the nation on Particular Immigrant Visas, earned primarily based on their service to the U.S. authorities overseas, they aren’t all the time handled like allies. Sadat’s household has been harassed intermittently since they arrived in 2017. She mentioned harassers have banged on their doorways late at night time, and as soon as even fired weapons within the air outdoors their condominium to intimidate them. “Particularly in opposition to those that put on a scarf,” she mentioned, “some persons are very biased.” After she noticed the Amber Alert, Sadat mentioned, her kids and neighbors had been scared and puzzled if the kid been focused as a result of her household had been Afghans, Muslim, or simply immigrants on the whole.
Certainly, nearly instantly, theories proliferated on social media, largely within the feedback underneath every information story concerning the disappearance, but in addition in each closed and public Fb teams devoted to “discovering Lina.” Some speculated that the Sardar Khils had been complicit within the disappearance. Dad and mom are all the time closely scrutinized by the general public in lacking individuals instances, and regulation enforcement questioned the Sardar Khils early on. However web sleuths had been extra centered on theories primarily based on Islamophobia than on precise leads. They questioned the household’s nationality, unfold misinformation about Islam and Afghan tradition, and proliferated theories that the couple had trafficked their baby, bought her as a toddler bride, or gotten rid of her as a result of she was not a boy. “There’s undoubtedly a desperation to seek out the villain right here they usually’re in search of the simple goal,” mentioned Abel Peña, a lacking individuals personal investigator who’s aiding the Sardar Khils and labored for 26 years with the FBI.
Tarot readers started posting movies early within the search, providing readings and inspiring viewers to invest on the case. A number of portended dying; one claimed one of many different moms within the complicated was accountable. Others devoted much less time to mysticism and extra to opinion gathering. A YouTube call-in present furthered the Islamophobic theories, and a minimum of one different YouTube livestream started attempting to crowdsource data on Allen to implicate her within the disappearance.
In these preliminary days, Zarmeena’s absence from the cameras struck many novice sleuths as suspicious. Riaz mentioned he was nervous about her being on display screen. The Taliban is cracking down on ladies displaying their faces or voices in public media, and even on tv dramas. “I’ve household again in Afghanistan. In the event that they noticed that she was within the media it will impression their lives too,” mentioned Riaz.
All of the conspiracy theories and Islamophobia has taken a toll, Mangal mentioned. Anybody near the household has been topic to harassment and hypothesis, Mangal mentioned. “It’s making their ache extra, however not serving to.”
Nearly instantly after Lina went lacking, the San Antonio police known as for FBI help with their search. Neither SAPD or the FBI would touch upon the investigation, as it’s formally ongoing. Nobody aiding the Sardar Khils mentioned that they had seen sufficient proof to mount any particular theories of who may need taken Lina.
Amid the early Islamophobic response, Allen organized an interfaith Christmas Eve prayer vigil to unite San Antonians behind the Sardar Khil household. Elected officers and round 200 others gathered, from the Afghan neighborhood and past. Prayers from interfaith clergy had been supplied in English and Pashto, and Riaz lit a candle as an emblem of hope and religion. Mangal, who sits on the board of the Afghan neighborhood council in San Antonio, mentioned his fellow Muslims had been completely happy to affix with Jews and Christians to wish for Lina’s secure return. “We’ve got the identical ache,” he mentioned, “Our neighborhood was considering, ‘We aren’t alone.’”
Potential leads introduced each terror and hope, Riaz mentioned. The reward supplied by the Islamic Middle of San Antonio and San Antonio Crime Stoppers San Antonio, an interagency and neighborhood crime fixing initiative, ultimately amounted to $250,000. Suggestions started to filter in, however most weren’t credible. One tip, nevertheless, led to a flurry of motion in early 2022. On January 4, the FBI despatched a dive group to a pond close to the Sardar Khils’ condominium complicated, unbeknownst to the household. (The San Antonio Police Division and the FBI wouldn’t share the main points of what led the FBI to ship the group to the pond.)
As phrase received out and media flocked to the search, somebody known as Allen to ask if she knew what was happening. She didn’t, and shortly she and Mangal rushed to get Riaz to the pond in order that he may hear immediately from regulation enforcement. After they arrived, the divers had been surfacing empty-handed. Allen was pissed off on the lack of communication with the household and continues to really feel that cultural obstacles have gotten in the best way. “In the event that they had been an American household they might be having that communication,” she mentioned.
When weeks handed with out new investigative data being shared with the household, the Sardar Khils and Allen started organizing efforts of their very own in late January. Riaz left his well-paying job as a business trucker and started driving domestically for Amazon, in order that he may commit most of his time to the search. The Afghan neighborhood and Eagles Flight, Allen’s group, rallied search events to comb 27 miles of the close by Leon Creek Greenway, the kind of secluded place the place our bodies are sometimes disposed. Riaz was all the time among the many searchers, and Allen mentioned she cringed each time he lifted a tarp or as soon as when he unzipped a suitcase. “I couldn’t breathe considering he would possibly see his child.”
Quickly native psychics and tarot readers additionally confirmed up on the searches, and novice sleuths filmed contributors—typically to surveil the searchers. Harassment of the household and anybody serving to them continued as volunteers got here up empty-handed. Hecklers confirmed up on the Sardar Khils’ dwelling, adopted them in public, and maligned them on the web. Allen and Mangal too have been harassed, they mentioned, to the purpose that Allen needed to enhance safety for herself, her mom, and her grownup son with particular wants.
However extra heartening was the variety of people that got here out for these lengthy days of looking out on the greenway, Allen mentioned, together with households who knew the search course of all too properly. One among her former shoppers, a teenage lady with a incapacity who had been kidnapped and recovered early within the pandemic, approached Riaz round midday of 1 search day. “Don’t quit,” she informed Riaz. “My dad and mom didn’t quit, they usually discovered me.”
The search continued for eight weeks, till volunteers had walked your entire greenway. The conclusion was “bittersweet,” Eagles Flight posted on Fb: whereas the household was relieved to not discover the worst, discovering nothing was maddening another way.
Lacking individuals recordsdata are retained “indefinitely,” based on the FBI, and SAPD informed native media that lacking individuals instances are by no means thought-about closed till the particular person is discovered. However as time goes on, the police division mentioned, the circulation of data coming in determines exercise on a case. Just lately, dependable data and leads on Lina have been scant, producing little for investigators to look into. It’s chilling, as 94 p.c of lacking kids are discovered inside 72 hours, whereas the outlook within the days, months, and years past which might be a lot bleaker. But, with no physique having been found, Allen believes Lina was kidnapped, not killed. “I completely really feel that somebody is holding her,” she mentioned.
On June 10, practically six months after Lina’s disappearance, Zarmeena gave delivery to a child boy, Saud. It’s an optimistic identify, which means “lucky” or “affluent,” expressing the aspirations any dad and mom would have for his or her baby. The Sardar Khils have been excited to welcome a brand new member of their household, and have positioned one foot firmly into the long run they stay up for. However their different foot continues to be firmly planted previously, on December 20, the final time their household was actually entire. They are saying they nonetheless wish to see extra from regulation enforcement, however within the absence of data, they continue to be hopeful. It’s all, Riaz mentioned, that they’ll do.