Shima Babaei, the Girl Whose Father Disappeared

Shima Babaei, the Girl Whose Father Disappeared

28-year-old Shima Babaei, with a worried face and tired eyes, watches the outside from the window of her room in Brussels, the capital of Belgium. She says her father went to fight Saddam for a better future for his children and later joined the protesting students against the government in 2009. Now, the daughter lives in exile and has been waiting for over 16 months for news of her father, Ebrahim Babaei.

In December 2022, Dr. Ebrahim Babaei, a veterinarian and former political prisoner and critic of the Islamic Republic government, intended to illegally exit Iran. He told the smugglers that he was an Afghan refugee wanting to go to Turkey. He was supposed to be smuggled to Turkey through the Maku region in West Azerbaijan.

Along the way, Mr. Babaei was in constant contact with his daughter Shima in Belgium via WhatsApp. Shima says, ‘My father made a two-minute call. He was very anxious and spoke quietly. He said, ‘There are 25 of us, and we are in a barn in a border village.’

In a BBC report from a few months ago, one of the smugglers who was with Ebrahim Babaei for part of the smuggling route said that some smugglers betray Iranian political refugees at the border. In return, the government’s intelligence officers overlook their smuggling and other illegal activities.