KABUL: Mehria had been losing hope of getting a visa to emigrate to the United States but her spirits were crushed when President Donald Trump raised yet another hurdle by banning travel for Afghans.

Trump had already disrupted refugee pathways after he returned to power in January but a sweeping new travel ban on 12 countries, including Afghanistan, will go into effect on Monday.

The ban changes little for most Afghans who already faced steep barriers to travel abroad, but many who had hung their hopes on a new life in the United States felt it was yet another betrayal.

“Trump’s recent decisions have trapped not only me but thousands of families in uncertainty, hopelessness and thousands of other disasters,” Mehria, a 23-year-old woman who gave only one name, said from Pakistan, where she has been waiting since applying for a US refugee visa in 2022.

“We gave up thousands of hopes and our entire lives and came here on a promise from America, but today we are suffering one hell after another,” she told AFP.

The United States has not had a working embassy in Afghanistan since the Taliban ousted the foreign-backed government in 2021, forcing Afghans to apply for visas in third countries.

The Taliban’s return followed the drawdown of US and NATO troops who had ousted them two decades earlier in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The Taliban government has since imposed a strict view of Islamic law and severe restrictions on women, including bans on some education and work.

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have applied for visas to settle in the United States, either as refugees or under the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program reserved for those who aided the US government during its war against the Taliban.

Afghans with SIV visas and asylum cases will not be affected by Trump’s new order but family reunification pathways are threatened, the Afghan-American Foundation said in a statement condemning the ban.

Some 12,000 people are awaiting reunification with family members already living in the United States, according to Shawn VanDiver, the president of the AfghanEvac non-profit group.

“These are not ‘border issues’. These are legal, vetted, documented reunifications,” he wrote on social media platform X. “Without exemptions, families are stranded.”

Refugee pathways and relocation processes for resettling Afghans had already been upset by previous Trump orders, suddenly leaving many Afghans primed to travel to the United States in limbo.

The Trump administration revoked legal protections temporarily shielding Afghans from deportation in May, citing an improved security situation in Afghanistan.

“We feel abandoned by the United States, with whom we once worked and cooperated,” said Zainab Haidari, another Afghan woman who has been waiting in Pakistan for a refugee visa.

“Despite promises of protection and refuge we are now caught in a hopeless situation, between the risk of death from the Taliban and the pressure and threat of deportation in Pakistan,” said Haidari, 27, who worked with the United States in Kabul during the war but applied for a refugee visa.

Afghans fled in droves during decades of conflict, but the chaotic withdrawal of US-led troops from Kabul saw a new wave clamouring to escape Taliban government curbs and fears of reprisal for working with Washington.

Pakistan and Iran have meanwhile ramped up deportation campaigns to expel Afghans who have crossed their borders.

The Taliban authorities have not responded to multiple requests for comment on the new travel ban but have said they are keen to have good relations with every country now that they are in power — including the United States.

Visa options for Afghans are already severely limited by carrying the weakest passport globally, according to the Henley Passport Index.

However, travel to the United States is far from the minds of many Afghans who struggle to make ends meet in one of the world’s poorest countries, where food insecurity is rife.

“We don’t even have bread, why are you asking me about traveling to America?” said one Afghan man in Kabul.

Sahar, a 29-year-old economics graduate who has struggled to find work amid sky-high unemployment, said the new rules will not have any impact on most Afghans.

“When there are thousands of serious issues in Afghanistan, this won’t change anything,” she told AFP.

“Those who could afford to travel and apply for the visa will find another way or to go somewhere else instead of the US.”

DAKAR: The International Committee of the Red Cross announced the closure of its offices in Niger and the departure of its foreign staff, four months after the ruling junta ordered the organization to leave the country.
The ICRC confirmed the closure and departure in a statement on Thursday.
“We reiterate our willingness to maintain constructive dialogue with the authorities of Niger with a view to resuming our strictly humanitarian protection and assistance activities,” Patrick Youssef, the ICRC’s regional director for Africa, said in the statement.
In February, Niger’s Foreign Affairs Ministry had ordered the ICRC to close its offices and leave the country. No official reason was given for the military junta’s decision to shut down the organization’s operations in the country at the time.
The ICRC said it had been in dialogue with Niger’s authorities since February to understand the reasons for their decision and provide any necessary clarification but that these efforts were unsuccessful.
On May 31, Niger’s junta leader, Abdourahamane Tchiani, justified the ICRC expulsion on Nigerien state television, accusing the organization of having met with “terrorist leaders” and funding armed groups.
The ICRC refuted the accusations in its statement on Thursday, saying that dialogue with all sides in the conflict is necessary to carry out its humanitarian mandate and that it “never provides financial, logistical, or any other form of support” to armed groups.
The humanitarian organization had been active in the West African country since 1990, mainly helping people displaced by violence by Islamic extremists, food insecurity and natural disasters. According to the organization, it provided humanitarian aid to more than 2 million people in Niger.
Niger’s military rulers took power in a coup two years ago, the latest of several military takeovers in Africa’s Sahel, the vast, arid expanse south of the Sahara Desert that has become a hotspot for extremist violence by militant groups.
Since the coup, Niger has pulled away from its Western partners, such as France and the United States, turning instead to Russia for security.
Last November, the country’s military junta banned the French aid group Acted from working in the country amid tensions with France.