People wait outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, as a military transport plane takes off behind them in August, 2021.JIM HUYLEBROEK/The New York Times News Service
An Islamabad hotel room has begun to feel more like a jail cell for an Afghan man who once worked as an interpreter for the Canadian military, as his long wait for Canada’s promised help enters another year.
The interpreter spends most of his time inside the room with his wife and five children. The family has no official immigration status in Pakistan, and the kids can’t attend school. Instead they try to entertain themselves, and cry often. The few trips the interpreter has made outdoors have been to the hospital with his wife, who has become depressed.
The family is frustrated and confused, but giving up and going home to Afghanistan is not an option.
It has been two years since the Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan, after a chaotic withdrawal of Western troops and other personnel. The interpreter and his family fled soon after, but his work for Canada makes them all potential targets for reprisal from the new fundamentalist regime, should they ever return.
The family’s Pakistani visas have expired, and they fear deportation. “We are really in a dire situation now. We can’t go out because of Pakistani police,” the interpreter said.
The Globe is not naming the interpreter and two of the other Afghans mentioned in this story, because they fear for their safety, or the safety of family members still in Afghanistan.
After the Taliban takeover, Western governments offered resettlement to people like the interpreter, who had worked for those countries’ diplomatic and military missions in Afghanistan. But, two years later, many Afghans who qualify for Canada’s programs remain in limbo.
The Canadian government announced its special resettlement program for Afghans who had worked for Canada in July, 2021. It also created a humanitarian resettlement program for Afghans vulnerable to Taliban persecution, such as female leaders and LGBTQ people, and created a program for extended family members of former interpreters who had come to Canada under previous policies.
Ottawa has promised to bring at least 40,000 Afghans to Canada. According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 36,130 have arrived since August, 2021.
The Globe first met the interpreter and his family, as well as dozens of other Afghans in Pakistan, this past November. Many are now still in Pakistan, even though they have completed every step necessary to travel to Canada under the special program.
Most are in hotels or guesthouses run by the International Organization for Migration. Others, who have not formally been invited to apply for resettlement in Canada, are barely able to survive because they are not being provided with housing and food.
The interpreter said he and his family have run out of money and sold all of their belongings. He said he is tired of borrowing from friends.
Three other Afghans The Globe met in Pakistan are in similar situations.
One man, who supervised a group of tailors working for the Canadian Armed Forces at the Kandahar Airfield, has been stranded for more than a year. He and his family have completed the biometric and medical checks Canada requires as part of the resettlement process.
He said he has watched the Pakistani guesthouse where he and his family are staying fill up with Afghans and empty again, as others have made their way to Canada.
“My son is always asking me, ‘When will we go to Canada?’ It’s very hard for me to answer him because I don’t know what to tell him,” he said.
Ruchi Kumar: The Taliban’s ban on hair and beauty salons won’t just hurt Afghanistan’s women
Jamaluddin Aram: Afghanistan has been at war with itself
For the past two years, Canadian veterans’ groups such as Aman Lara and the Veterans Transition Network have been working to evacuate Afghans. Aman Lara said in a statement that it has helped more than 5,300 escape Afghanistan, about 3,800 of whom are now in Canada.
Tim Laidler, the Afghan support director for the Veterans Transition Network, said his group has evacuated 3,046 people so far. He said the organization is continuing to support a group of veterans working to get their interpreters, and other people who worked for Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, out of the country.
When it comes to the Afghans still languishing in Pakistan, he said, Canada should be paying attention to the mental-health toll that a two-year-long transition can take on a family.
“The purpose of us helping them come to Canada is to get them out of harm’s way and hopefully have a better life. If we put them in limbo for two years, we’re defeating the purpose, because we’re further traumatizing, further stressing families. Having children out of school for years at a time is not going to help them in their adjustment to Canada,” he said.
Julie Lafortune, a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, said resettlement applications are assessed individually, and that processing times vary. She added that timelines may be longer if IRCC has to wait for additional information related to background checks and medical examinations.
”IRCC is doing everything we can to help Afghans, including working with partners in the region, state entities, international and non-profit organizations,” she said.
Another former interpreter The Globe met in Pakistan, Fida Hussain, said he is also still living with his family in an IOM hotel in the country.
He said Canada’s immigration bureaucracy is ignoring interpreters, and that he feels as though people with weaker connections to Canada are being prioritized over those who supported the government’s mission.
“I lost my hair and my mind because of this process,” he said. “My youngest son and daughter always ask me, ‘Papa, when will we fly? When will we have a home? When will I go to school?’”
There are also Afghans hoping to come to Canada who have not heard anything from the federal government and haven’t been offered hotel rooms.
One woman, who worked on Canadian-funded projects intended to promote the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan, was living in a room in Peshawar when The Globe met her last November. Now, she is living in the streets with her husband and children.
“We don’t have food, my children are growing and their ages are rising and they can’t go to school, so they will be illiterate and uneducated. My children are sick and we can’t afford medical care,” she said.
She said she can’t return to Afghanistan because she fears the Taliban will kill her for having worked with Canada. In the meantime, her Pakistani visa has expired, and she has nowhere else to go.
“When will the Canadian government provide me safety?” she asked.