Amirzai Sangin

Amirzai Sangin
Amirzai Sangin in 2011
Minister of Communications & IT of Afghanistan
Incumbent
Assumed office 2004
President	Hamid Karzai
Personal details
Born	6 June 1949 Paktika Province, Afghanistan
Religion	Islam

Amirzai Sangin (Pashto: اميرزی سنګين‎, born 6 June 1949) is a politician in Afghanistan, currently serving as the Minister of Communications & Information Technology. An ethnic Pashtun, he was born in the Urgun District of Paktika Province in Afghanistan.

As a founding member of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, he has made significant contributions to Afghanistan's education, agriculture and medical sectors over the last two and a half decades.

Sangin was born as the first son to Amirgul Gulshakhel, a tailor, on 6 June 1949 in the Urgun District of Paktika Province. He has three brothers and eight sisters. Sangin attended primary school in Urgun and secondary school in Gardez, Paktia Province. He graduated from Afghanistan's Telecommunications Training Center (TTC), and arrived in London in 1969, where he studied for six years, obtaining an engineering degree in electronics and communications from South London College, London.

He was an instructor at TTC from 1975–1978, and served as its rector from 1978–1980.

After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Sangin soon realized that he, as the rector of TTC, would be seen as a representative of the previous regime, and that he thus would be viewed as a traitor. This meant that he and his family were in danger. In March 1980, he by chance received an invitation to a telecom conference in Kalmar, Sweden. Upon arriving in Sweden in June, he sought asylum. His wife and their three sons would arrive a couple of months later. A daughter was born in Malmö, Sweden, in 1985, and the family has lived in the region since.