Sleepless "Mother Of A Thousand" Worries For Afghan Orphans

In a phone call from Sydney in the early hours of Wednesday, she reached a staff member at one of the four orphanages her organisation runs in Afghanistan.

Mahboba Rawi is barely sleeping these days, worried instead about the "thousand children" that her charity Mahboba's Promise has in its care in Afghanistan. In a phone call from Sydney in the early hours of Wednesday, she reached a staff member at one of the four orphanages her organisation runs in Afghanistan. The staffer told her people are afraid now the Taliban are in control. "I feel fear of life of my children. I am the mother of a thousand kids. I am worried about their safety and security and I worry about what might happen in the future for my work," Rawi said after the call. Rawi, now 52, fled Afghanistan in the 1980s after Russia invaded the country, reaching Australia in 1984 as an 18-year-old. In 1992, she lost a 6-year-old son in a drowning accident and promised to dedicate herself to saving children.