People wave at American soldiers at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 22, 2021.JIM HUYLEBROEK/The New York Times
Canadian expats and Afghans trying to gain access to evacuation flights out of Kabul say they can’t find Canadian soldiers at the city’s airport and aren’t getting sufficient information from federal officials in Ottawa.
Complaints about a slow and ineffective Canadian response contradict assurances from government ministers and federal officials that everything possible is being done to assist Canadian citizens on the ground in Afghanistan, as well as Afghan nationals who are connected to Canada because they or their family members worked as support staff for the country’s military or diplomats. The situation in Kabul has grown increasingly chaotic over the past week as the Taliban have consolidated their control over the city.
Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan told reporters on Sunday that Canadian Armed Forces personnel are posted at each of the security gates at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport. In a briefing Monday, military officials said that Canadian special forces soldiers are working outside the airport’s security perimeter, helping eligible evacuees make it through.
But The Globe and Mail spoke by WhatsApp on Monday with an Afghan-Canadian who has spent the past three nights outside the airport with his wife, two young children, stepdaughter and five other family members.
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Abdul Hadi Yusufi said the airport gates are staffed by U.S. soldiers, who would not allow him inside the perimeter, even though he showed them his Canadian passport. There were no Canadian soldiers at any of the gates, he said.
“They [the Americans] looked at my passport and I waved it at them, and they told me, ‘No, just go away,’” he said. “The Canadians are inside the perimeter of the airport. They are not at the outside. We have no contact with them.”
Mr. Yusufi said his wife is an Afghan police officer and that her life would be in grave danger if the Taliban were to arrest her. “If she is caught, she will be butchered in no time.”
Horeya Mosavi, who is Mr. Yusufi’s niece and lives in Edmonton, said she contacted a Global Affairs emergency hotline for Afghanistan on Monday. She was told her uncle had to figure out how to get into the airport on his own.
“The lady on the line said if he is able to get inside the airport, they can help him. If he can’t, then they are not able to help him,” Ms. Mosavi said.
Tens of thousands of people have thronged the airport perimeter. Photographs and videos shared on social media show many standing in waist-deep water, holding smartphones and identification documents as they wait in hopes of catching a flight out.
Thousands of Afghans continue to gather outside Kabul's airport, waiting to flee the country. Reuters asked some people in the crowd if they believed the Taliban had changed.
Reuters
Sally Armstrong, a journalist and an advocate for Afghan women, said she has been receiving dozens of pleas for help from Afghans each day. “These are legitimate refugees, people who worked for companies funded by Canada. They file the application and don’t hear back,” Ms. Armstrong said.
She said she has been trying to help a former support staffer get on a flight, but he has only received exit visas from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada for three of his five family members. He’s afraid to proceed without exit visas for the entire family, Ms. Armstrong said, and is trying to decide whether to risk the journey to the airport with small children or stay and hide from the Taliban.
“Someone in the government needs to get off the election trail and deal with an organizational problem at Immigration,” Ms. Armstrong said.
Jasteena Dhillon, a lawyer and law professor at Humber College who worked in Afghanistan for four years, has been helping Afghans evacuate. She said she has not seen evidence that Canada has made arrangements to assist Afghans with reaching the airport.
“Why are the Canadians having to go straight to the airport and confront the Taliban at checkpoints when other countries are sending military transports or buses that zoom through town and cut through the checkpoints?” she said.
The Canadian military has airlifted five flights of evacuees since Aug. 19, after U.S. troops secured the airport. The most recent Canadian flight for which Ottawa has provided information left Kabul on Sunday, carrying 436 Afghans. Some of the Afghan passengers flown out since Aug. 19 are destined for countries other than Canada, because Canada is pooling its evacuation efforts with allies.
In Halifax on Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the immigration department is working around the clock to give people accurate information. “Our forces on the ground have all the necessary authorizations to do what they feel is necessary to save as many people as quickly as possible,” he said.
At Monday’s briefing, military officials declined to elaborate on what Canadian soldiers are doing outside the airport, citing operational security.
Canada is dispatching more Canadian Armed Forces soldiers to an unidentified third country to help with processing of Afghan refugees, one of the officials said. About 900 Afghans have so far arrived in Canada under special immigration measures intended to provide refuge for those fleeing the Taliban.
Dwayne Thompson, a South African security contractor who worked at the Canadian embassy in Kabul, told the Johannesburg-based Sunday Times how he and about a dozen security guards were left behind after Canada’s ambassador recently exited the country.
Mr. Thompson told the newspaper the guards were instructed to wait for a charter flight, but they were warned it might take a while. They waited for the promised aircraft, the Times reported. But, Mr. Thompson said, “the timeline went from three days to five, then eight days, then 10.”
“We realized nobody was coming for us and we were on our own,” Mr. Thompson told the newspaper.
Mr. Trudeau told reporters that Canada will push other Group of Seven countries to consider new sanctions against the Taliban when the countries’ leaders meet virtually on Tuesday.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who currently leads the G7 – which also includes the U.S., France, Germany, Italy and Japan – called the emergency meeting in response to the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.
Mr. Johnson plans to discuss economic sanctions and suspension of humanitarian aid if the Taliban commit human-rights abuses and allow Afghanistan to be used as a haven for terrorists.
“Absolutely,” Mr. Trudeau said when asked if he favoured sanctions against the Taliban.
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