[ 2 minutes to read] Update april 2022 – For 22-year-old Ilham he must always temper his dream of living in a free country with everyday life managing challenging health and economic realities in Turkey.

“A country where I wouldn’t have to think twice before saying what I want,” he mused in a recent conversation with SUN.

Ilham (not his real name but an alias to protect him) shares an apartment with friends in a small Turkish city where he goes to school. An atheist who fled his country of Afghanistan and violence against him from family and other true believers, Ilham struggles with making ends meet and a medical condition that adds to his woes. Add to that burden his broken heart over what has happened to his country since the West pulled out of Afghanistan last year.

“I have a rare medical condition,” Ilham explained. “It is when the immune system is overactive and mistakes healthy cells for infection and destroys them.”

No cure exists but there are treatments that relieve the symptoms.