Two years after fall of Kabul, tens of thousands of Afghans languish in limbo waiting for US visas 

Afghan refugees hold a rally to demand their U.S. visas to be processed in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, Feb. 26, 2023. (AP)
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Updated 11 August 2023
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Two years after fall of Kabul, tens of thousands of Afghans languish in limbo waiting for US visas 

  • Left with little information, Afghans in Pakistan compare what they hear from US officials about their cases in WhatsApp groups 
  • Pakistan was already home to millions of Afghans and an estimated 600,000 more have surged into the South Asian country 

ISLAMABAD: When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, Shukria Sediqi knew her days in safety were numbered. As a journalist who advocated for women’s rights, she’d visited shelters and safe houses to talk to women who had fled abusive husbands. She went with them to court when they asked for a divorce. 

According to the Taliban, who bar women from most public places, jobs and education, her work was immoral. 

So when the Taliban swept into her hometown of Herat in western Afghanistan in August 2021 as the US was pulling out of the country, she and her family fled. 

First they tried to get on one of the last American flights out of Kabul. Then they tried to go to Tajikistan but had no visas. Finally in October 2021, after sleeping outside for two nights at the checkpoint into Pakistan among crowds of Afghans fleeing the Taliban, she and her family made it into the neighboring country. 

The goal? Resettling in the US via an American government program set up to help Afghans at risk under the Taliban because of their work with the US government, media and aid agencies. 




An Afghan refugee attends a rally demanding their U.S. visas to be processed in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, Feb. 26, 2023. (AP)

But two years after the US left Afghanistan, Sediqi and tens of thousands of others are still waiting. While there has been some recent progress, processing US visas for Afghans has moved painfully slowly. So far, only a small portion of Afghans have been resettled. 

Many of the applicants who fled Afghanistan are running through savings, living in limbo in exile. They worry that the US, which had promised so much, has forgotten them. 

“What happens to my children? What happens to me?” Sediqi asked. “Nobody knows.” 

During two decades in Afghanistan after its 2001 invasion, the US relied on Afghans helping the US government and military. Afghan journalists went to work at a growing number of media outlets. Afghans, often women working in remote areas, were the backbone of aid programs providing everything from food to tutoring. 

Since 2009, the US has had a special immigrant visa program to help Afghans like interpreters who worked directly with the US government and the military. 

Then, in the waning days of the US presence in the country, the Biden administration created two new programs for refugees, expanding the number of Afghans who could apply to resettle in the US 

The visas, known as P-1 and P-2, are for aid workers, journalists or others who didn’t work directly for the US government but who helped promote goals like democracy and an independent media that put them at risk under the Taliban. 




Afghan refugees hold an indoor rally to demand their U.S. visa to be processed in Islamabad, Pakistan, Friday, July 21, 2023. (AP)

The programs were intended to help people like Enayatullah Omid and his wife — Afghans who helped build the country after the 2001 Taliban ouster and were at “risk due to their US affiliation” once the US withdrew. 

In 2011, Omid started a radio station in Baghlan province with the help of the US-based media training nonprofit Internews and funding from the US Agency for International Development. He was the station’s general manager but did everything from reporting on-air to sweeping the floors at night. His wife, Homaira Omid Amiri, also worked at the station and was an activist in the province. 

When the Taliban entered Baghlan on Aug. 9, 2021, Omid said he did one last thing: He burned documents to keep the Taliban from identifying his staff. Then he and his wife fled. 

They stayed at shelters arranged by a committee to protect Afghan journalists until the Taliban shut them down. Internews referred Omid to the US refugee program in the spring of 2022. Told he had to leave Afghanistan for his case to proceed, Omid and his wife went to Pakistan in July 2022. 

Even in Pakistan Omid doesn’t feel safe. Worried about the Taliban’s reach, he’s moved three times. There are police raids targeting Afghans whose visas have run out. As he spoke to The Associated Press, he was getting text messages about raids in another Islamabad neighborhood and wondered how much he should tell his already stressed wife. 

He said America has a saying: Leave no one behind. 

“We want them to do it. It shouldn’t be only a saying for them,” he said. 

The American airlift in August 2021 carried more than 70,000 Afghans to safety, along with tens of thousands of Americans and citizens of other countries — plane after plane loaded with the lucky ones who managed to make their way through the massive crowds encircling Kabul airport. Most gained entry to the US under a provision known as humanitarian parole. 

Many more are still waiting. There are about 150,000 applicants to the special immigrant visa programs — not including family members. A report by the Association of Wartime Allies said at the current rate it would take 31 years to process them all. 

Separately, there are 27,400 Afghans who are in the pipeline for the two refugee programs created in the final days of the US presence in Afghanistan, according to the State Department. That doesn’t include family members, which potentially adds tens of thousands more. But since the US left Afghanistan it’s only admitted 6,862 of these Afghan refugees, mostly P-1 and P-2 visa applicants, according to State Department figures. 

In June, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US has relocated about 24,000 Afghans since September 2021, apparently referring to all the resettlement programs combined. 

Among the refugee program applicants are about 200 AP employees and their families, as well as staff of other American news organizations still struggling to relocate to the US 

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, said the US refugee process in general can be agonizingly slow, and waits of as long as 10 years are common. Furthermore, former US President Donald Trump gutted the refugee system, lowering the annual number of accepted refugees to its lowest ever. 

Other challenges are unique to Afghan immigrants, said Vignarajah. Many Afghans destroyed documents during the Taliban takeover because they worried about reprisals. Now they need them to prove their case. 

“The grim reality is that they’ll likely be waiting for years on end and often in extremely precarious situations,” Vignarajah said. 

In a recent report, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a body created by Congress to oversee government spending in Afghanistan, faulted the various resettlement programs set up for Afghans. 

“Bureaucratic dysfunction and understaffing have undermined US promises that these individuals would be protected in a timely manner, putting many thousands of Afghan allies at high risk,” the report said. 

It also criticized the lack of transparency surrounding the refugee programs, which it said has left Afghans considering whether to leave their country to await processing without “critical information” they need for such a crucial decision. 

In a sign of the confusion surrounding the process, applicants like Omid and his wife were told they had to leave Afghanistan to apply, a costly endeavor involving selling their possessions, going to another country and waiting. They, like many others, ended up in Pakistan — one of the few countries that allows Afghans in — only to discover the US was not processing refugee applications there. 

That changed late last month when the State Department said it would begin processing applications in Pakistan. 

However, Congress has so far failed to act on a bill that seeks to improve efforts to help Afghans still struggling to get to America. 

The State Department declined an AP request for an interview but said in a statement it is committed to processing Afghan refugee visas. In June, Blinken applauded the efforts that have gone into helping Afghans resettle in America but emphasized the work continues. 

At the same time, the Biden administration has made progress in recovering from the Trump-era curtailment of the refugee system. The administration raised the cap on refugees admitted to the US to 125,000 a year, compared to Trump’s 15,000 in his final year in office. It’s unlikely the Biden administration will reach the cap this year, but the number of refugees and Afghans admitted is increasing. 

Shawn VanDiver, who heads a coalition supporting Afghan resettlement efforts called #AfghanEvac, said he doesn’t agree with criticism that the refugee programs are a failure. 

They have gotten off to a “really slow start and there are vulnerable people that are waiting for this much needed relief,” he said. “But I also know that ... from my conversations with government, that there is movement happening to push on this.” 

Left with little information, Afghans in Pakistan compare what they hear from US officials about their cases in WhatsApp chat groups that have organized social media protests demanding swifter US action. 

“Avoid putting our lives in danger again,” one post read. 

Pakistan was already home to millions of Afghans who fled decades of conflict when the Taliban returned to power and an estimated 600,000 more surged into the country. While many had valid travel documents, renewing them is a lengthy and costly process. Raids looking for Afghans with expired visas have heightened tensions. 

Abdul, who declined to give his surname for fear of arrest because his visa has expired, worked as head of security for an aid group in Afghanistan that specialized in economic help for women. The risks were enormous; three colleagues were killed while he worked there. 

One of his last tasks was getting the group’s foreign staff to the airport to escape. The organization stayed open into 2022, when the Taliban detained Abdul for two weeks. After his release, a Taliban member said he could protect his family — if Abdul gave him his daughter in marriage. 

Abdul knew it was time to leave. He, his wife and children fled that night to Iran. Late last year, when they were told their referral to one of the refugee programs had been approved, they went to Pakistan. Since then, there’s been no information. 

Their visas now expired, the family is terrified to leave the house. 

“The future is completely dark,” Abdul said. “I’m not afraid to die, I’m just really worried about the future of my children.” 


Pakistan police arrest 149, including 48 Chinese, in scam center raid

Updated 5 sec ago
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Pakistan police arrest 149, including 48 Chinese, in scam center raid

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan police arrested 149 people — including 71 foreigners, mostly Chinese — in a raid on a scam call center, the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency said Thursday.
“During the raid, a large call center was uncovered, which was involved in Ponzi schemes and investment fraud,” the agency said in a statement.
“Through this fraudulent network, the public was being deceived and vast sums of money were being illegally collected.”
The agency said they were acting on a tip-off about the network, operating in the city of Faisalabad, a manufacturing center in the east of the country.
It said the raid was at the residence of Tasheen Awan, the son of the former chairman of the Water and Power Development Authority, a government agency.
All those arrested were in custody, including 78 Pakistanis and 48 Chinese, as well as citizens from Nigeria, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Myanmar.
Some 18 of the 149 were women, it added.

China says ‘verifying’ case of citizens held for alleged spying in Ukraine

Updated 28 min 11 sec ago
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China says ‘verifying’ case of citizens held for alleged spying in Ukraine

  • Ukraine’s SBU security service said the son was a 24 year old former student of a technical university in Kyiv, and that the father, who lives in China, had traveled to Ukraine to coordinate his son’s “espionage activities”

BEIJING: Beijing said Thursday it was still “verifying” the case of a Chinese father and son detained by Ukraine for allegedly trying to smuggle navy missile technology out of the war-torn country.
“If Chinese citizens are involved, we will... safeguard Chinese citizens’ legitimate rights and interests in accordance with the law,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
Relations between Kyiv and Beijing, a key Russian ally, are strained.
Ukraine and the West accuse China of enabling the Russian invasion through trade and of supplying technology, including for deadly drone attacks.
Ukraine also says dozens of Chinese citizens have been recruited by Russia’s army and sent to fight.
Ukraine’s SBU security service said Wednesday the son was a 24-year-old former student of a technical university in Kyiv, and that the father, who lives in China, had traveled to Ukraine to coordinate his son’s “espionage activities.”
The two were “attempting to illegally export secret documentation on the Ukrainian RK-360MC Neptune missile system to China,” the agency said.
Moscow and Beijing struck a “no limits” partnership on the eve of Russia’s February 2022 invasion, and have since deepened political, military and economic cooperation.


Hundreds of migrants moved from Crete to Greek mainland as island struggles with Libya arrivals

Updated 49 min 58 sec ago
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Hundreds of migrants moved from Crete to Greek mainland as island struggles with Libya arrivals

  • EU officials earlier this week were turned away from eastern Libya following an apparent disagreement on the format of talks planned on curbing crossings

LAVRIO: More than 500 migrants arrived at the port of Lavrio near Athens Thursday after being intercepted south of the island of Crete, as Greece implements emergency measures to address a surge in Mediterranean crossings from Libya.
The migrants, consisting mostly of young men, were transferred overnight aboard a bulk carrier after their fishing trawler was intercepted by Greek authorities. Service vessels helped bring them ashore at the mainland port. They will be sent to detention facilities near the capital.
Their transfer to the mainland was ordered because makeshift reception centers on Crete have reached capacity, with roughly 500 news arrivals per day on the Mediterranean island since the weekend.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced Wednesday that Greece would suspend asylum processing for migrants arriving by sea from North Africa for three months. The measure targets arrivals on Crete and was taken during a diplomatic strain between the European Union and Libya over migration cooperation. EU officials earlier this week were turned away from eastern Libya following an apparent disagreement on the format of talks planned on curbing crossings.
Authorities on Crete are struggling to provide basic services, using temporary facilities to house migrants, primarily from Somalia, Sudan, Egypt and Morocco, according to island officials.


Ukraine to launch Starlink mobile Internet in 2026, becoming Europe’s first, Kyivstar says

Updated 10 July 2025
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Ukraine to launch Starlink mobile Internet in 2026, becoming Europe’s first, Kyivstar says

ROME: Ukraine will become the first European nation to offer Starlink mobile services when leading operator Kyivstar launches messaging by year-end and mobile satellite broadband in mid-2026, Chief Executive Oleksandr Komarov said.
Field tests have begun under an end-2024 deal with Space X’s commercial broadband constellation to allow tech entrepreneur Elon Musk’s company to launch direct-to-cell services in the war-torn country.
Direct-to-cell devices connect to satellites equipped with modems that function like a cellphone tower, beaming telephone signals from space directly to smartphones.
“The first phase is over-the-top (OTT) messaging ... so messaging via WhatsApp, Signal, and other systems ... it will be in place at the end of this year,” Komarov told Reuters in Rome.
“And probably at the beginning of 2026, let’s be on the safe side, Q2 2026, we will be able to propose mobile satellite broadband data ... and voice.”
SpaceX did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
US carrier T-Mobile will introduce a data service on its satellite-to-cell network, powered by Starlink, at the start of October, the company said in June.
Komarov was speaking ahead of a Ukraine recovery conference Italy is hosting three years after the Russian invasion, with President Volodymyr Zelensky also due to attend.
He said his main aim at the conference, the fourth since the war began in February 2022, was to support the Ukrainian government and establish new business ties, some with Italian firms willing to expand in the country.
Kyivstar, owned by telecoms group VEON, is also working toward a US listing on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Komarov said the project was “moving forward” and hoped to finalize it in the third quarter of this year.
“I think it will be an exemplary move,” he added. “The first in history, the direct placement of (a) Ukrainian entity on the American stock exchange ... during the war.”
Komarov said Ukrainian telecom infrastructure was holding up well under Russia’s escalating assaults in recent weeks.
Last year one of its attacks on power grids and transmission lines caused daily blackouts in major cities after it knocked out about half Ukraine’s available generation capacity.
“I think that we are much more resilient than we used to be in 2022. Right now we can run our fixed and mobile services up to 10 hours during the blackouts, even national blackouts.”


Benin bets on free vets, schools to turn people away from extremism

Updated 10 July 2025
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Benin bets on free vets, schools to turn people away from extremism

  • Besides fighting off the militants, the 3,000 Beninese soldiers deployed to the region have worked to win the trust of northern communities both threatened by the militants

COTONOU: In north Benin, the army is waging a campaign away from the front — a program of social projects, including free veterinary care, to tempt locals away from extremism.

Located just south of Niger and Burkina Faso — which together with neighboring Mali form the world’s terrorism epicenter — Benin’s north has come under increasing pressure from Islamist militants, many of them linked to Al-Qaeda.

Besides fighting off the militants, the 3,000 Beninese soldiers deployed to the region have worked to win the trust of northern communities both threatened by the militants’ advance and courted by well-funded Islamist groups.

In May, the army provided free treatment to more than 4,000 cattle belonging to herders in the Materi commune and delivered medical care to 1,700 patients in another village in the Atacora region bordering Burkina Faso.

“These projects show an obvious desire to restore trust between the defense forces and communities,” Lt. Doctor Mardochee Avlessi said in early June.

The army medic, who is in charge of a joint civilian-military committee in Materi, said the army wanted to work in the “spirit... of building security together.”

In this, the west African country hopes to learn from the errors of its neighbors in the Sahel — the army cannot root out extremism by itself.

Part of the problem is the lack of development in the region.

“The places which are the most insecure are the least developed in Benin,” Mathias Khalfaoui, a specialist in west African security, told AFP.

And as the United Nations points out, Benin’s north is the least developed part of the country.

Militants are winning over hard-up communities with cash, rather than ideological or religious arguments, a UN report dated May argued.

“In exchange for supplies and information, terrorist groups offer money to young locals,” the report found.

The most influential Islamist group in the north is the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, known by its Arabic acronym JNIM.

By exploiting local frustrations, the JNIM has managed to rally Beninese to its cause after years of working to establish itself in the north.

“If we do not bring a response from the state and public services in these regions, where there is already a local sentiment of sometimes feeling perhaps a bit abandoned, it’s sure that the fight against militancy will become impossible,” said Khalfaoui, the security researcher.

Besides militants putting down local roots, the suspension of military cooperation between Benin and Niger and Burkina Faso has helped fighters launch ever-increasing assaults.

Benin experienced its first militant raids in 2021.

Within three years, the deaths had piled up, with militants killing 173 people in 2024, according to the UN report.

To develop social projects in the north, Benin has also received help from the international community.

In Atacora and the neighboring Donga commune, the French Acting for Life charity trains young Beninese in masonry and eco-friendly construction to help them find work.

“To best occupy the young, you have to train them and above all bring them into working life,” Abdoulaziz Adebi, the executive director of the association in charge of the project, told AFP.

“I have a future with this training,” said Boukary Moudachirou, a young person supported by the charity who hails from Djougou, north Benin’s most Muslim commune.

“Now we know there are good things we can do and move away from certain things,” he told AFP.

But observers fear the state’s social initiatives and the army’s program of well-digging and school-building will be too small to fulfill the growing needs of the north’s people.

The army’s ability to fight militants will remain limited without effective collaboration with Niger and Burkina Faso, with both of whom Benin is locked in a diplomatic spat.

“No state authority is present at the border of Burkina Faso, where the territory is controlled by armed groups, while Niger has closed its borders with Benin,” the UN has warned, worried that deals between the neighbors allowing the army to pursue militants are no longer in force.

Of further concern, given what is happening on its other frontier with Nigeria, where militants and criminal gangs have committed murderous attacks, “Benin has a larger area to defend,” added security researcher Khalfaoui.

Another UN report from February found that the JNIM was looking to advance toward Nigeria from north Benin and had linked up with Ansaru, a Nigerian militant group which splintered off from Boko Haram.

Other countries in the region threatened by militants, such as Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Mauritania, have likewise looked to development as a means to stave off unrest.