An Afghan ex-government official says how he and his family are living like prisoners after the US evacuated them to an American military base in Kosovo.
With the quick collapse of the Afghanistan government under Ashraf Ghani back in mid-August last year, the Taliban fighters could seize the power and form their caliphate. This made many Afghan people and officials choose to leave Afghanistan due to the fear of the Taliban rule.
A few days after the overthrow of the Ghani administration, US president Joe Biden issues a statement promising to evacuate Afghan people and officials who used to work with the US in one way or another; “I’ve just met with the Vice President to discuss our ongoing efforts to evacuate American citizens, third-country civilians, Afghan allies, and vulnerable Afghans.” Biden said on August 20, adding also that “We’re going to do everything — everything that we can to provide safe evacuation for our Afghan allies, partners, and Afghans who might be targeted if — because of their association with the United States.”
But nearly a year after the Taliban have come to power, many Afghans who were associated with the US during the past 2 decades are still left behind in Afghanistan or elsewhere.
According to a report released early this June, the United States has evacuated “only about 3 percent of Afghans who worked for the American government and applied for special visas, leaving behind an estimated 78,000.”
The report, issued by the nonprofit Association of Wartime Allies, also noted that many Afghan people and officials with ties with US government are still stuck in the Taliban-ruled country and face increasingly desperate circumstances; “Their lives have been devastated by being left behind with seemingly no verifiable path to safety,” the group said in the statement.
Biden failed to fulfill his promise
Nearly ten years ago, the U.S. government created a special immigrant visa called ‘SIV. The program was an initiative to help resettle Afghans at risk due to their connection with U.S. military.
When the Biden administration decided to completely pull out the US military from Afghanistan in mid-August, there were about 81,000 Afghans who had applied for the visas. However, although tens of thousands of Afghans were evacuated in the final chaotic days of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, only 3,000 were granted the special immigrant visa program.
And now, nearly a year after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration has not yet released an estimate of how many visa-have Afghans were evacuated. Instead, it has tried to refer to the larger number of Afghans who were flown out of Afghanistan regardless of having the special visa or not.
Biden’s inability to fulfill his promise about evacuating all Afghans associated with the US government with special visas has left the lives of many of them in total limbo.
Muhammad Arif Sarwari, is a former Afghan intelligence official who used to worked for the United States for nearly wo decades. He has recently told the NBC News that he and 45 other Afghan refugees have been stuck at a U.S. military base in Kosovo in very bad conditions since late August. when they were evacuated by the U.S. from Afghanistan. “We have absolutely no freedom to leave the area. We only have access to one field, the bathrooms, the dining hall, and our tent. … Not only are we unable to leave the camp, but we can’t speak to most of the visitors. Sarwari said, adding that “we feel like prisoners.”
