The arrivals gate at Sydney International Airport often sets the scene for emotional reunions with relatives and friends.
But for the Khawaja family, this was no ordinary homecoming.
Nadia Khawaja and her two daughters Faria, 20, and Aryana, 19, told SBS News they are lucky to be alive after they were caught up in a deadly terror attack at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul on January 20.
Mother of five Nadia Khawaja described the terrifying moment she came face-to-face with the Taliban, who claimed responsibility for the assault that killed more than 40 people.
“I started to cry and said: ‘Don’t kill me, please don’t kill me’,” Mrs Khawaja said.
Mrs Khawaja and her two daughters were in Afghanistan visiting family and celebrating Faria Khawaja’s wedding to her Kabul-based husband.
The group had enjoyed a buffet dinner and live music at the restaurant moments before shots rang out.
“All of a sudden you just start hearing gunshots. One by one they were shooting the guards that were standing at the front of the restaurant,” Aryana Khawaja said.
The gunmen ordered people to stand in a line, looking to shoot foreigners and demanding to see people’s identification.
Aryana’s uncle took a bullet in the shoulder while her cousin was hit three times in the leg. Both are still recovering in hospital.
“My uncle said: ‘Please don’t mess with the women. If you want to do anything, do it to me’. And they shot him straight there right in the shoulder, he fell to the ground,” Ms Khawaja said.
Terrified, the group ran to a nearby room, tripping over dead bodies and barricading themselves in.
They sat in silence for three hours listening to the screams of hostages being murdered on the upper floors of the hotel.
“That’s when I literally lost hope,” Aryana Khawaja said.
“I truly didn't think I was going to get out of there alive. I'm either going to be shot or they're going to do a suicide bomb and we're going to be buried under this hotel.”
Thinking of her three other children and husband back in Australia, Nadia turned to prayer.
“I prayed to God, please God, save us, please save us,” Mrs Khawaja said.
After an agonising wait, special forces soldiers eventually rescued the group, dodging gunfire and explosions on their way out of the hotel.
The Intercontinental is a state-owned hotel - not linked to the global hotel chain of the same name - which often hosts weddings, conferences and political gatherings.
Afghanistan has been rocked by a spate of deadly violence in recent weeks, with more than 100 people dying after a suicide bomb exploded in Kabul a week ago.
The Khawaja women remain traumatised by the experience and said they are worried for their family that remain overseas.
“People like us don’t get out of situations like that, because we’re foreigners,” Faria Khawaja said.
“We feel lucky that we got out of there alive but guilty for the people who died there,” Aryana Khawaja said.
