Rain had begun falling when the van pulled to a stop at one of Oregon’s most unusual cemeteries.
The men in the back of the van had died in a small plane crash in mid-December after the plane’s pilot ignored a flight instructor’s advice to avoid returning to a small airport because of low visibility. The plane slammed into the ground near Independence, a small town about 12 miles southwest of Salem.
The deaths set in motion a series of events – a confluence of politics, faith and fear – not only in Salem, but 7,000 miles away in Afghanistan, where those who loved and grieved for these men could not publicly mourn or even mention them because of the possibility of official reprisal.
The men on that small plane were former Afghan Air Force pilots who had fought side-by-side with American forces in Afghanistan. They were forced to flee their homeland when the United States military withdrew from the country in 2021 and the Taliban took control.
The three men left behind everything, including wives, children and extended family. They eventually arrived in Salem, where they started new lives with the help of Salem for Refugees, which resettled the men in the Salem area last spring.
Thirty-five-year-old Mohammad Hussain Musawi, who was behind the controls of the doomed plane, and passengers Mohammad Bashir Safdari, 35, and Ali Jan Ferdawsi, 29, were all training for commercial pilot licenses in Oregon.
They had found work as truck drivers and dreamed of joining an airline and beginning the arduous, tricky and potentially dangerous process that they hoped would bring their families from Afghanistan to Oregon.
That all ended in December. And their deaths raised an unexpected issue.
What to do with their bodies? The men’s families were in Afghanistan, but the bodies couldn’t go back there.
The answer came a week ago.
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MJ Juya, a man who serves as a welcoming committee of sorts for Afghan refugees who end up in Salem, knew all three pilots.
He too came to the United States from Afghanistan, arriving in Salem (via Texas) in 2016.
“Several of us started a small community to welcome any new Afghans,” he said.
“The United States was their new home,” he said. “We wanted them to love this country as much as they loved their original country.”
Because the Taliban considers former Afghan Air Force pilots the enemy, Juya is cautious when talking about the three men who died in December, talking generally about all former U.S.-aligned Afghan Air Force pilots.
The pilots, he said, had been given advanced training in NATO countries, gaining the skills to go back to Afghanistan and fight with the U.S. military.
“Everything happened suddenly when the Taliban took control,” said Juya. “People who were helping the U.S government had to evacuate. Many pilots flew their planes out of the country to keep them from the Taliban.”
The pilots, he said, were relocated to military bases in the United States, where their paperwork was processed. They were then assigned to cities and states across the United States.
Juya said at least seven Afghan pilots ended up in Salem.
“It is not safe to say anything about them or their families,” he said.
Musawi, Safdari and Ferdawsi embraced their new home. They hiked in Oregon’s forests, played volleyball and joined a soccer club. They were working hard to become commercial pilots.
When the three men’s bodies were released by authorities following an official investigation into the cause of the crash, no one knew what to do with them.
Their Muslim faith would not allow them to be cremated, and the bodies could not be returned to their homeland.
Juya said even putting in official requests for the bodies to be sent to Afghanistan would likely cause problems for their families, raising attention from officials looking for enemy combatants and anyone not loyal to the new order.
Mohammad Bashir Safdari’s body ultimately was sent to be buried in the Midwest, where a relative lives.
But what about Mohammad Hussain Musawi and Ali Jan Ferdawsi?
With no family members of the two men in the country, the small Afghan expat community in Salem stepped up.
The key problem: the pilots were Shia Muslims, and their faith requires them to be buried “in a one-hundred percent Muslim cemetery,” said Juya. There are few such cemeteries in Oregon.
The closest one was The Islamic Cemetery of Oregon in Corvallis, but Juya said burials there were only permitted for a select group of Sunni Muslims, not Shia Muslims.
Juya turned to the Islamic Center of Portland, a mosque in Beaverton.
Founded in 2015 on five acres of land on a hillside off St. Helens Road, about 15 miles from Portland, it has no restrictions on any Muslims being buried there.
It was quickly decided: The two former Afghan Air Force pilots would be buried next to each other at the cemetery on Saturday, January 6.
Ali Houdroug, a retired electrical engineer who oversees the Beaverton cemetery, took charge of the bodies.
“The bodies must be washed and shrouded,” he said. “Blessings are given. It is about comfort and respect. It is normal for me to do this. But this was only the second time I treated bodies so badly burned.”
When all was ready, the bodies were loaded into a van and then driven to the cemetery.
As the doors opened, it began to rain.
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The two bodies – each in a wicker basket – were carried by Afghan men of varying ages, two or more on each side of the basket, hoisting it to their shoulders and walking up the slight hill toward a tent.
They were followed by other mourners, the men stopping every 10 feet or so to set the basket on the ground to say prayers while others touched the baskets to give their blessings.
“It is our belief to participate,” said Houdroug, “to feel the sorrow of your brothers.”
The men moved up the hill toward two freshly dug graves.
At the site, the mourners – maybe 100 in total – formed five lines while an imam led all in prayers.
Then it was time.
The first body was lifted from the basket, carried to a grave and gently lowered while more prayers were given. Then came the second body. Each man was laid in the grave with their heads facing east, toward Mecca, as required by their faith.
A plastic cover was placed over each body.
The mourners began shoveling dirt – gently – on top of each grave, the dead men’s final resting place.
Musawi, Safdari and Ferdawsi had fought in a war for their homeland and lost. They died in their new country, far too soon.
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