Kabul: Every night in another home in the Afghan capital, a California American green card-holder couple falls asleep, with one man always awake to see their three young children, so that if they listen to his footsteps, they can Can run away Taliban.
They moved seven times in two weeks, relying on relatives to take them inside and feed them. Their days are an uneasy mix of fear and boredom, confined to a few rooms where they read, watch TV and play “The Telephone Game” in which they whisper secrets and pass them on, a diversion for children. Which has the added benefit of silencing them.
All this happens while desperately waiting for someone’s call that can help them out. a US State Department The officer contacted him several days ago and told him he was being appointed a case worker, but he hasn’t heard a word since. They are also talking to an international rescue organization.
“We are scared and keep hiding ourselves more and more,” the mother told The. said in a text message to The Associated Press. “Whenever we feel breathless, I pray.”
Through messages, emails and phone conversations with loved ones and rescue groups, the AP has pieced together what day-to-day life has been like for some of those left behind after the chaotic withdrawal of the US military – including US citizens , permanent U.S. residents, green-card holders and visa applicants who assisted U.S. soldiers during the 20 Years’ War.
Contacted by the AP – who has not been identified for his own safety – has spent weeks hiding in homes, keeping lights off at night, moving from place to place and wearing baggy clothes and a burqa, a gruesome, secret existence. described. Avoid finding out if they must venture at all.
Everyone says they fear the ruling Taliban will find them, put them in jail, maybe even kill them because they are Americans or have worked for the US government. And they are concerned that the promises made by the Biden administration to kick him out have been thwarted.
When a call came to an apartment in Kabul a few weeks ago, the American green card holder answered — a truck driver from Texas was visiting the family — hoping it was the U.S. state Department Finally responding to his pleas to get him and his parents off the flight.
Instead, it was the Taliban.
“We won’t hurt you. Let’s meet. Nothing will happen,” said the caller, according to the truck driver’s brother, who lives in Texas with him and spoke to him later. The call included some ominous words: ” We know where you are.”
This was enough to send the man fleeing the Kabul apartment where he was living with his mother, his two teenage brothers, and his father, who were especially in danger because they had worked with an American contractor overseeing security guards. Worked for years.
“They are disappointed,” said the brother in Texas. “They think, ‘We’re stuck in the apartment and there’s no one here to help us.’ They have been left behind.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Congress Last week the government did not track US permanent residents with green cards in Afghanistan, but they estimate that there are several thousand people living in the country with about 100 US citizens. He promised that the US government was working to get him out.
As of Tuesday, 36 American citizens and 24 green card holders have been evacuated since the US military withdrew last month, according to the State Department. More were sent out on Friday but the administration did not release those figures.
Neither the US nor the Taliban have given a clear explanation as to why so few people were evacuated.
That’s hardly encouraging for another Texas green card holder, a grandmother who recently pulled terrorists off a rooftop into half a dozen police cars and watched Humvis To occupy the house across the street.
“Taliban. Taliban,” she whispered over the phone to her American son in a Dallas suburb, a conversation the woman told the AP. “Women and children are screaming. They are dragging the men to the cars. ”
She and her husband, who had come to Kabul to visit relatives several months ago, are now afraid that the Taliban will expose not only their American ties, but the return of their son to Texas, who worked for a US military contractor for years. did.
His son, who has not been named, says he called the US embassy officials in Kabul several times before closing, completed all the necessary paperwork, and was even a veteran. He also took the help of members of the group and Congress.
He doesn’t know what else he can do.
“What will we do if they knock on the door?” The 57-year-old mother asked on one of her daily calls. “What shall we do?” “Nothing is going to happen,” replied the son.
When asked in a recent interview whether he believed the son shot back, angrily, “What else should I tell him?” The Taliban government has promised Americans and Afghans to leave the country with proper travel documents and not to retaliate against those helping the United States.
But the UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet Said that there is evidence that they are not keeping their word. She warned on Monday that the country had entered a “new and dangerous phase”, and cited credible reports of retaliatory killings of Afghan military members and former Taliban government officials and people collaborating with the US military. Accused of house-to-house hunting. American companies.
AP reporters in Afghanistan are not aware of any US citizens or green card holders being picked up or arrested by the Taliban. But he has confirmed that several Afghans who worked for the previous government and the military were recently taken in for questioning.
The California family, which includes a 9-year-old girl and two boys, aged 8 and 6, say they have been on the run for the past two weeks after the Taliban knocked on the door of their relative’s apartment and asked Americans to stay home. asking about. There.
The family moved to Sacramento four years ago after the mother received a special immigrant visa as she worked for US-funded projects promoting women’s rights in Kabul. Now, the mother says that she and her daughter both wear burqas whenever they go to their next “jail-house”.
Father who works as an Uber driver has a panic attack while waiting for help.
“I don’t see the US government going ahead and kicking them out any time soon,” said Nate McGill, the principal of the children’s elementary school, who has been exchanging texts with the family daily.
Distraction has become the most important tool for a mother to protect her children from stress. She asks them what they want to do when they come back to California and what they want to be when they grow up.
His daughter hopes to become a doctor one day, while his sons say they want to be a teacher.
But distraction isn’t always enough. When a relative told the daughter that the Taliban were taking away little girls, she hid in a room and refused to come out until her father blew himself up and said he could defeat the Taliban. so that he can laugh.
The mother smiled while hiding her fear from her daughter, but later messaged her principal.
“This life is almost half-death.”
They moved seven times in two weeks, relying on relatives to take them inside and feed them. Their days are an uneasy mix of fear and boredom, confined to a few rooms where they read, watch TV and play “The Telephone Game” in which they whisper secrets and pass them on, a diversion for children. Which has the added benefit of silencing them.
All this happens while desperately waiting for someone’s call that can help them out. a US State Department The officer contacted him several days ago and told him he was being appointed a case worker, but he hasn’t heard a word since. They are also talking to an international rescue organization.
“We are scared and keep hiding ourselves more and more,” the mother told The. said in a text message to The Associated Press. “Whenever we feel breathless, I pray.”
Through messages, emails and phone conversations with loved ones and rescue groups, the AP has pieced together what day-to-day life has been like for some of those left behind after the chaotic withdrawal of the US military – including US citizens , permanent U.S. residents, green-card holders and visa applicants who assisted U.S. soldiers during the 20 Years’ War.
Contacted by the AP – who has not been identified for his own safety – has spent weeks hiding in homes, keeping lights off at night, moving from place to place and wearing baggy clothes and a burqa, a gruesome, secret existence. described. Avoid finding out if they must venture at all.
Everyone says they fear the ruling Taliban will find them, put them in jail, maybe even kill them because they are Americans or have worked for the US government. And they are concerned that the promises made by the Biden administration to kick him out have been thwarted.
When a call came to an apartment in Kabul a few weeks ago, the American green card holder answered — a truck driver from Texas was visiting the family — hoping it was the U.S. state Department Finally responding to his pleas to get him and his parents off the flight.
Instead, it was the Taliban.
“We won’t hurt you. Let’s meet. Nothing will happen,” said the caller, according to the truck driver’s brother, who lives in Texas with him and spoke to him later. The call included some ominous words: ” We know where you are.”
This was enough to send the man fleeing the Kabul apartment where he was living with his mother, his two teenage brothers, and his father, who were especially in danger because they had worked with an American contractor overseeing security guards. Worked for years.
“They are disappointed,” said the brother in Texas. “They think, ‘We’re stuck in the apartment and there’s no one here to help us.’ They have been left behind.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Congress Last week the government did not track US permanent residents with green cards in Afghanistan, but they estimate that there are several thousand people living in the country with about 100 US citizens. He promised that the US government was working to get him out.
As of Tuesday, 36 American citizens and 24 green card holders have been evacuated since the US military withdrew last month, according to the State Department. More were sent out on Friday but the administration did not release those figures.
Neither the US nor the Taliban have given a clear explanation as to why so few people were evacuated.
That’s hardly encouraging for another Texas green card holder, a grandmother who recently pulled terrorists off a rooftop into half a dozen police cars and watched Humvis To occupy the house across the street.
“Taliban. Taliban,” she whispered over the phone to her American son in a Dallas suburb, a conversation the woman told the AP. “Women and children are screaming. They are dragging the men to the cars. ”
She and her husband, who had come to Kabul to visit relatives several months ago, are now afraid that the Taliban will expose not only their American ties, but the return of their son to Texas, who worked for a US military contractor for years. did.
His son, who has not been named, says he called the US embassy officials in Kabul several times before closing, completed all the necessary paperwork, and was even a veteran. He also took the help of members of the group and Congress.
He doesn’t know what else he can do.
“What will we do if they knock on the door?” The 57-year-old mother asked on one of her daily calls. “What shall we do?” “Nothing is going to happen,” replied the son.
When asked in a recent interview whether he believed the son shot back, angrily, “What else should I tell him?” The Taliban government has promised Americans and Afghans to leave the country with proper travel documents and not to retaliate against those helping the United States.
But the UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet Said that there is evidence that they are not keeping their word. She warned on Monday that the country had entered a “new and dangerous phase”, and cited credible reports of retaliatory killings of Afghan military members and former Taliban government officials and people collaborating with the US military. Accused of house-to-house hunting. American companies.
AP reporters in Afghanistan are not aware of any US citizens or green card holders being picked up or arrested by the Taliban. But he has confirmed that several Afghans who worked for the previous government and the military were recently taken in for questioning.
The California family, which includes a 9-year-old girl and two boys, aged 8 and 6, say they have been on the run for the past two weeks after the Taliban knocked on the door of their relative’s apartment and asked Americans to stay home. asking about. There.
The family moved to Sacramento four years ago after the mother received a special immigrant visa as she worked for US-funded projects promoting women’s rights in Kabul. Now, the mother says that she and her daughter both wear burqas whenever they go to their next “jail-house”.
Father who works as an Uber driver has a panic attack while waiting for help.
“I don’t see the US government going ahead and kicking them out any time soon,” said Nate McGill, the principal of the children’s elementary school, who has been exchanging texts with the family daily.
Distraction has become the most important tool for a mother to protect her children from stress. She asks them what they want to do when they come back to California and what they want to be when they grow up.
His daughter hopes to become a doctor one day, while his sons say they want to be a teacher.
But distraction isn’t always enough. When a relative told the daughter that the Taliban were taking away little girls, she hid in a room and refused to come out until her father blew himself up and said he could defeat the Taliban. so that he can laugh.
The mother smiled while hiding her fear from her daughter, but later messaged her principal.
“This life is almost half-death.”
.