Maryam’s life stopped last Saturday. Since then, every minute of every day has been divided between getting updates from her family in Iran when they can communicate with her, and the hours between, when she’s left guessing what their fate might be.
Maryam, who asked that we not use her real name for security reasons, is not alone. The Iranian diaspora is one of the largest in the world, including those who fled persecution under the former shah pre-1979, those who fled oppression under the Islamic Republic, and those who simply sought financial stability or careers overseas. Now, like Maryam, they live for snatches of information about the welfare of their relatives in the midst of a war that threatens to engulf the region.
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“What is happening now is my worst fear,” Maryam, 33, says from Madrid. She was last in Tehran in January, but returned to the Spanish capital, where she works, following the wave of mass protests that month, when thousands were killed.
“This is what I search for at 3am when I can’t sleep: ‘US Iran,’” she says of her Google search, “just to check.”
“Every piece of that land is like a cell in my body. My dad is from the south, my mother [is from] the north, so every inch of that land is me. I feel like everywhere is my home. An aggression against that land is an aggression against me. Iran is like my other mother,” she says, her voice breaking.
Across the Iranian diaspora, many describe a sense of helplessness and dread that grew following the build-up of United States forces off their country’s coast in late January. That is when US President Donald Trump warned of the “massive armada” making its way “quickly”, and “with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose”, towards Iran.
On February 28, the predictions of observers around the world became reality, with the first of the massive waves of US and Israeli strikes on Iran that have since continued, killing at least 1,230 people, and destroying huge swathes of infrastructure and homes.
Among the dead was Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the Iranians have responded with their own attacks on Israel and surrounding states, with fears that the conflict will spiral out of control across the wider region.
‘Torture’ watching from afar
Sara, a student, describes searching every scrap of news footage from Iran for some sign of her family home, high in the hills above Tehran.
“My grandfather built it on the sides of a hill,” she says from London, where she has no choice but to watch the war on her country unfold.
“It’s our family home. It’s where my parents were married. It’s where I spent my childhood. It’s my family’s soul,” she says, describing the “torture” and the impotence of looking on as much of the city where she grew up burns.
Hiwa, 35, an Iranian Kurd from Sanandaj, also known as Sine, in northwestern Iran, says he heard from his father last week, before the US and Israeli strikes. He is less worried for his family because their location has not been among the main targets of the attacks. But he says he can’t be sure that won’t change in the future.
Hiwa fled Iran three years ago, crossing the English Channel to the United Kingdom after he says his friends were arrested for their pro-democracy activities. Hiwa explains that he had already been arrested twice, in 2011 and 2014, for similar reasons. During the first arrest, he says, he was taken from his university, locked in a room and beaten. The second arrest led to him spending a month in prison.
Now he thinks about his widowed father, already in his 70s, at home in Sine and sick with cancer.
“I mean, it is a big paradox, you know, it is a very, very big paradox,” he says. He describes his life in the UK, how he can go outside, go for a coffee, and how people will smile at him.
“But when you go back home, you’re thinking about your family. You are in a terrible situation. You can’t balance between them,” he says of a life stretched emotionally between two continents and two wildly different sets of circumstances.
“I can’t sleep at night,” he says, “It’s affected my study, my education, my work, everything.”
Political trauma
Even before the current conflict, Iranians have struggled to watch the unrest in their country.
Demonstrations in January led to a government crackdown. The United Nations and international human rights organisations have accused government forces of killing thousands of protesters. The Iranian state has blamed “terrorists” for many of the killings.
Like many in Iran, Maryam and Sara are used to oppression, and the violence that it can spark. Maryam explains that her mother had been a political prisoner. Maryam herself had been involved in the 2009 Green Movement protests after the controversial re-election of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
A few days ago, she went through her loft, looking for belongings that would remind her of Iran.
She found a photograph from those protest days.
“I was sitting down, to show that we were peaceful,” she says, her voice warming at the memory of her younger self. “The sun is in my face and I’m sort of frowning. I’ve been through these things before. Everyone has been through these things before. We always pretend it’s new and [that] we haven’t, but it’s not new. We all saw this coming. All I see are repeats of what’s gone before.”
No one who spoke to Al Jazeera claims to know what the future holds for Iran. None of them expect the country or its people will be any better off by the time the bombs stop. For now, all are worried about their friends and family, who have no option but to try and live through it.
Maryam remembers her mother’s mental fortitude in the years after she was released from the notorious Evin Prison.
“When I was about 13 or 14 years old, they built a highway that [passed by] it,” she says. “You could drive and see inside as you were passing it. I remember being in the car, with my mum driving and seeing how beautiful and determined she was – to be passing all this darkness and not letting it [impact] her.”
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