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Journalist recounts abduction in Afghanistan By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF The plight of Afghan women and the fragile hope that exists for their future was brought into focus last Thursday, during a CSAW (Canadians in Support of Afghan Women) fundraiser featuring CBC journalist Mellissa Fung. About 225 people packed St. John's United Church to hear Fung, who was abducted while on assignment in Afghanistan in 2008. Fung spoke briefly about the abduction, but said that, as a journalist, she does not like being the story particularly when there are so many other stories to tell. The experience, she said, began on Oct. 12, 2008 when Fung, accompanied by a `fixer' and a driver, visited a refugee camp near Kabul, which housed more than 5,000 people forced to flee violent fighting in the south of the country. Fung said the conditions in the camp were overwhelming as people were living in tents and mud huts with only the fires they had built, and blankets donated by aid agencies, for warmth. To this day, their situation has not changed, she said. Fung said she was careful not to stay too long, as doing so attracts attention, and that can be dangerous for a foreigner in Afghanistan. Still, she had completed several interviews and made arrangements to speak to the United Nations' Kabul office about the refugee situation when things began to go awry. "As we were walking back to the car, a blue car just drove up in a big cloud of dust and out jumped three masked men armed with AK-47s," than five-feet in height. It was dark and lit only by a battery-operated lamp. There were a couple blankets spread over a hard and cold dirt floor and a few pillows." Fung did not talk about her time in the hole, only stating later that her experience there haunted her long after her release and eventually led to therapy. After four weeks in captivity, Fung said she was blindfolded and marched out of the house with a gun to her head. She said she was forced to walk about two hours with a trio of kid- 11 · Wednesday, November 7, 2012 OAKVILLE BEAVER · www.insideHALTON.com nappers before reaching a gathering of armed men. Fung said she had no idea what was happening. Her captors were not Taliban, but had threatened to sell her to See Threat page 13 Mellissa Fung said Fung. "They pointed them at my head and at the head of my fixer, Shokoor. They were trying to push me into the back of the car." Fung said what happened after that is "kind of a blur." She remembers punching one of the men in the jaw who retaliated by stabbing her in the shoulder and hand. Fung was eventually forced into the car and driven out of town, at which point her captors made her hike for hours over what she now knows were the Hindu Kush mountains. Eventually, Fung was placed on a motorbike and driven to a house. Once inside, she was placed in a dark hole where she would remain for the next 28 days. "The hole was no bigger than the size of a manhole cover, if you can imagine that. That led to a tunnel, which led to a bigger hole," said Fung. "The dimensions of the space would be a lot smaller than your average closet or crawlspace. I think it was about six-feet-long, five-feet-wide and a little more Thanks to you, our clients and the most wonderful people in the world, we have for the tenth year in a row been awarded the First Place Diamond Award by the Oakville Beaver in the categories of Incorporation Services, Tax Preparation Services and Business Advisory Services. This one was special for us; thank you for making it happen. 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