When I last wrote to you about this Afghan family that Claire Berlinski and I had been spending a few years trying to save, we were no closer to actually doing so. The family, a father who had worked as a translator for the French, the mother, who had worked as a human rights lawyer helping women in Afghanistan, their son, and five young daughters, all of whom could have been married off to Taliban fighters, lived in mortal danger after the fall of Kabul. They hid out for their lives, and eventually managed to relocate to Pakistan from Afghanistan, where their lives were no longer in immediate danger, but we had been unsuccessful in finding a sponsoring agency in Canada who were authorized to work with us to bring the family of eight to Canada as refugees. Every day they remain in Pakistan they are in danger of being deported back to Afghanistan.
I started searching for a sponsoring agency approved by the Canadian government that worked out of PEI, but there were none. Because Canadian sponsorship arrangements required a group of five individual sponsors who would oversee a family’s relocation to the area in which they live, we started to search in Toronto, where I knew enough people that I felt it might be possible to find 5 kind souls, in order to begin the process of seeking out an agency which had been granted sufficient slots by the government to oversee the process of bringing refugees to Canada, and which might consider their case..
After several heartbreaking false starts with various refugee agencies, I managed find an amazing group of five individual sponsors in Toronto, and together we found an approved agency The Jewish Immigrant Aid Services (JIAS), and along with the family we applied to them for support. This May, JIAS agreed to allocate slots for the whole family from this year’s allotment. It is hard to express how elated we are that there is real light at the end of this tunnel! As recently as six months ago the situation seemed hopeless.
We are not out of the woods however. The process of actually getting visa approval can take up to 2 years, and before it begins we need to amass sufficient funds to support the family of 8 in Toronto for one full year—a requirement of the refugee support process.
Claire Berlinski prepared a wonderful video presentation about the history of our effort, and about the family that I attached to the top of this piece. She also provided some descriptions the history of their plight and our involvement on her substack page, The Cosmopolitan Globalist, which also has a touching video recorded by the young girls, who have been learning English. I attach some of the discussion from Claire’s substack page below. It reads like the plot of a thriller
Mr. and Mrs. S. were in mortal danger, as were their five daughters and their son. Mr. S. had worked for French NGO for many years. Mrs. S was a lawyer who had been trained by the US State Department and a prominent women’s rights activist. She defended abused women and children, and she had put their abusers behind bars. The Taliban had released them, and now they wanted revenge.
They weren’t the only ones who wanted to kill her. The Taliban raided the office of the Afghan Bar Association, seizing a database with the names and identifying details of its members and their families, including Mrs. S. They set to work killing them.
The family was, therefore, in triple danger. Their father had worked for France. Their mother was a woman’s rights activist. And they were Tajiks. (Tajiks dominated the Northern Alliance, and make up the majority of Afghanistan’s educated, urban elite. The Taliban has ruthlessly suppressed and persecuted them.)
The French government understood that this family, in particular, was at grave risk, and put their names on the flight list for evacuation. Then came the bombing at Abbey Gate, and the flights stopped. The S. Family was one of countless many left behind.
The Family’s oldest son recounted the horror of their situation during the fall of Kabul:
I was a student at the computer science faculty. Our lives were normal. On the day Kabul fell, like all normal days, I woke up and went to work after breakfast. On the way, people sitting in the city vehicle were worried about the security situation. When I arrived at the office, the situation was still normal, like every day. It was 11 o’clock, when many people were out and about, when my father called me and told me to leave the office right away and go home, because the security situation wasn’t good.
I immediately left the office. On my way home, everyone looked disturbed, they were moving in every direction, terror was everywhere. It was as if Kabul had fallen, I thought, but I had never experienced such a situation and I thought that maybe tomorrow things would be better. I wasn’t aware that yes, Kabul had really fallen, that Kabul had been sold out by its corrupt Afghan leaders.
It was exactly two o’clock in the afternoon when I got home. Everyone was worried that our lives would change a lot. Warplanes flew over Kabul.
It was nighttime when I saw on Facebook that the Taliban had taken over the presidential palace in Afghanistan. From that moment, Kabul was dead. Our hopes were dashed. Everything we had worked for was lost in a single day. Afghanistan turned back the clock twenty years because of the United States’ policy mistakes and the corruption of Afghanistan’s leaders.
I woke up the next day with no hope of going to work because the whole city was closed. Fear was everywhere. I felt we had lost our freedom. Our achievements. Our hopes. Our reason to live. We lost it all.
All I could think about was surviving and getting out of Afghanistan. My mother worked for many years as a lawyer and advocate for women’s rights. My father also worked for years with the French government and other international organizations. It is clear that the Taliban is opposed to people like us. Kabul was no longer a safe place for us.
My father brought me the documents that proved he had worked on French projects for seven years. He said we had to contact the French embassy and ask them to save our lives. I was shocked, because my father loves Afghanistan very much. He could have left our homeland many times to emigrate to the United States or Europe. But before, he didn’t want to leave Afghanistan.
I took his documents and went to the French embassy, in the Green Zone. When I got there, about 5,000 people had already gathered near the embassy to ask for visas. Most of them had never worked for France. They were ordinary people. The Taliban were near the French embassy. They didn’t allow people to approach the embassy and they beat people away.
I went home and found the French embassy’s phone number on Google. I called them but they didn’t answer. I tried the French embassy on Twitter, but that didn’t work either. I could not make contact with them. By nightfall, I was sharing our problem on Twitter but could find no one to help.
A few days after the fall of Kabul, I was still unable to make contact with the French Embassy in Kabul. But Ms. Claire Berlinski replied to me on Twitter, as if she had been sent by God to help us. I told her about our situation and sent her our documents. She promised to try to help. She gave me the email of the French crisis center. I emailed the crisis center and sent them my documents. I told them about my family. But I did not receive an answer.
One day after the fall of Kabul, I saw two Taliban men with violent faces near our house, looking at our home. The Taliban are wild people. We have never been in such a situation before. Fear ran through us, wondering if they had come to kill us, but after thirty minutes, they left. We left the house immediately and went to my aunt’s house. Claire Berlinski tried contacting people in France to help us. But still, the French Embassy did not reply. They left us behind. I emailed them over and over but received no response.
We are currently hiding in my aunt’s house and we are not going outdoors. The Taliban are going house to house, searching for people who have worked with foreign institutions, and they’re also looking for women who defend women’s rights. We all fear for our survival. Our future is unknown. We see anxiety and misery in our parents’ faces. They are not worried about themselves, they are worried about their children’s future.
We are facing a lot of problems right now. We may not have food to eat in the next few days. During the many years that my parents were on duty, they spent all their money on our education and did not make enough money to save.
When I see my sisters, I can’t control my tears. These days are really hard. I cannot do anything for my sisters. We need urgently to leave Kabul. I don’t know why the French Embassy didn’t place any value on our lives. Our lives are in danger. The Taliban are not human, they will kill all of us. Our only hope right now is for the French government to intervene to save our family.
After this terrible ordeal, with Claire’s assistance, and some fundraising on her part, the family managed to secure passports eventually, and make their way to Pakistan, where they have remained for the past 2 years, as we sought a way to move them to Canada under its remarkable refugee-sponsorship program. That takes us to the present time, when we are on the cusp of being able to save them, and move them to Canada.
All that remains is the daunting task of raising sufficient funds to meet the government requirements. The required amount is significant, with food, housing, transportation, etc costs included. Our sponsor group has also committed to assist the family with local transport, help them find housing, and also schooling, job training etc.
Claire has hosted a gofundme program, which raised almost $30K USD toward our goal. I will also personally match any contributions arising from this request up to $5K. Beyond that, a generous donor has offered to match donations up to $50K USD. If we can meet these matches, we will reach our goal. WE ONLY HAVE TILL THE END OF SEPT TO REACH THIS GOAL IF WE ARE TO BE ABLE TO GET THEIR APPLICATION INTO THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT THIS YEAR!
DONATIONS:
The JIAS has kindly created two different direct PayPal donation links.
The first is specifically linked to the family, and if for some horrible reason the family were not able to arrive in Canada under this program, all funds would be returned to donors. Because the funding relates to this family uniquely, any donations made to this site are not tax deductible for Canadian residents. This is the preferred site for all those who are not concerned about receiving a Canadian tax receipt for their donations.
Here is the direct link: https://www.paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=VBKBGBFZ5G5FE
The second is a link to a fund which will provide for the family if they arrive, but if for some reason they cannot arrive, the funds will not be returned but will be allocated to others on the sponsor’s waiting list. Donations to this fund are however tax deductible for Canadian residents, and donors will receive a tax receipt.
Here is the link: https://www.paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=H49YGR3E5QMBY
PLEASE CONSIDER DONATING NOW TO SAVE THIS FAMILY!
There are many tragedies in Afghanistan, and thousands of people who need help. We cannot right all the wrongs, but we cannot save these 8 people. We can save a woman who fought for human rights and now faces execution in Afghanistan if she were to return. We can save 5 young girls who have no access to education, or freedom if they were to return to Afghanistan. Already, during the past 2 years in Afghanistan, they have learned much English, and one of the young girls has been selected for a prestigious online scholarship to study at an English speaking Afghan University now run outside of that country. We can do something concrete and positive to help them.
It isn’t everything, but it is something. I can tell you from my last experience of saving the life of a young girl from Afghanistan so she could study in the United States and eventually pursue and advanced degree that not a day goes by when I don’t think about how much more immediately significant that seems than all of the more etherial efforts I have made to try and improve the world through my writing and my work.
I think this final quote from Claire’s post expresses it best:
Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. Nothing I’ve ever done has struck me as more obviously the right thing to do than helping this family. I couldn’t have done it unless my readers had helped. I hope everyone who contributed, and will contribute, grasps that your contribution has given a family a chance to live. Not to better their life—although that, too—but to live.
They’ve asked me on occasion how they’ll ever repay you. I’ve taken the liberty on your behalf of telling them that their obligation is to pay it forward. I’m sure, given their drive and talent, that these girls will thrive and become successful powerhouses. Their son, too, is destined to be a great man: His determination to save and protect his family is a force of nature. They will absolutely, one day, be in a position to help another family. And when that happens, I have every confidence that they will—and that your generosity will spread through the world, and keep spreading, forever.
PLEASE HELP US MAKE ONE SMALL DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD, AND A HUGE LIFE-SAVING DIFFERENCE FOR THIS FAMILY!
We can now save this Afghan Family, with your support!!