The Desperate Effort To Get Afghan Allies To Safety

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🗓️ 19 August 2021

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

As many as 100,000 Afghans — those who worked with the U.S. military over the years, and their families — are trying to get out of the country. But access to the Kabul airport is controlled by the Taliban, and the American military says evacuating American citizens is its 'first priority.'

Among the Afghans trying to flee are those who've applied for or been granted a Special Immigrant VISA. James Miervaldis, chairman of No One Left Behind — which helps Afghan and Iraqi interpreters resettle in the U.S. — tells NPR the process has been frustratingly slow.

For Afghans and the families who do make it out, those who wind up in the United States will be offered help from organizations like the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, the group's president and CEO, tells NPR how the resettlement process unfolds.

This episode also features stories from family members of Afghan refugees already living in the U.S., which which first aired on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, with production from Hiba Ahmad and Ed McNulty. Correspondent Eleanor Beardsley in Paris reported on Afghan refugees in France.

In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Avista Helmandi's parents used to tell her how the Pomegranates tasted better in Afghanistan.
0:05.7	The ice cream too.
0:07.0	They tell me about their childhood and the greatness of their homeland and the city of Kanda'ad.
0:13.5	Avista is a student at the University of California in Davis.
0:17.3	Her parents arrived in the US years ago as refugees of the Soviet Afghan war.
0:22.3	And their hometown of Kandahar fell to the Taliban last week
0:26.4	in the final stage of its takeover of the country.
0:29.7	What I'm feeling is utmost hopelessness.
0:34.8	Just because I'm watching the country my parents tell stories about every single day of my life
0:41.5	since they came in America as refugees fallen to ashes.
0:47.1	I cry. I can control myself.
0:49.8	My body is in France but my whole mentality is all in Afghanistan.
0:55.3	Zora Yari, a 29-year-old university student in Paris, remembers living in Afghanistan under the Taliban.
1:02.2	The group kidnapped her father in 2000 and the family never saw him again.
1:06.8	When the Taliban were driven out she told NPR it was a golden time for Afghans.
1:12.2	We studied, we did in our school.
1:15.8	Especially the young people right now they have hope they want to work in Afghanistan.
1:20.8	Wasma Osman, a professor at Temple University, was born in Kabul.
1:25.6	My family came here to the US as refugees of war.
1:30.9	Nobody really wants to leave their country.
1:33.1	Osman told NPR.
1:34.4	The situation has to be dire.
	...

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