Fear rises for Afghans left behind when evacuations end

The suicide bombing at Kabul’s airport is crystalizing a harsh reality for aid groups and U.S. policymakers: thousands of Afghan allies are likely to be left behind on Aug. 31 when the American evacuation is set to end under President Biden’s deadline.

Advocates and Afghan Americans who spoke to The Hill about efforts to evacuate family members and vulnerable Afghans expressed extreme desperation over the imminent end of evacuation missions. 

“It’s beginning to sink in that all our efforts — it’s 24/7 for nine days … it’s beginning to sink in that maybe we won’t succeed and it’s feeling dreadful,” Sunita Viswanath, co-founder of the organization Women for Afghan Women, told The Hill.

Viswanath and her staff are trying to get some 500 people out of the country who they say are at imminent risk of violence from the Taliban. 

The fears of violence were brought home on Thursday when multiple explosions erupted outside the airport, where tens of thousands of people are trying to leave Afghanistan. They have become a target for terrorists who want to attack the U.S. and its allies.

At least 12 American service members were killed and 15 injured in multiple bombings and a firefight with the fighters from the terrorist group ISIS-K, the Pentagon said Thursday, while the Afghan Health Ministry told CNN at least 60 Afghans were killed in the blasts and 140 wounded.

Viswanath, who spoke to The Hill before Thursday’s bombing, said her organization has worked closely with the State Department, one of its largest funders, to get all 500 people evacuated. But she made it clear that some are unlikely to get in planes before Aug. 31.

“We’re not OK,” she said of how the staff is holding up. 

Nawa Lodin, an Afghan American from the Washington area who still has family — U.S. citizens — in Afghanistan who have been unable to get out, is also overwhelmed by pleas for help for Afghans at risk.

Afghans who are not U.S. citizens are a lower priority for evacuations. 

“I have family that are U.S. citizens that are still not out, so of course they’re priority, but I don’t know how to respond to these amazing activists, women’s rights activists, musicians, women that are doctors — and everything you’re hearing about the Taliban about being reformed is an absolute lie,” she said, referring to public statements from the Taliban indicating the organization has reformed to be more tolerant.

She cited as an example one woman she knows in Afghanistan, a gynecologist, who has not been able to work.

“She’s an educated physician that’s treating women, who’s not allowed to work, and now her life is at stake.”

Lodin is in a WhatsApp group with about 15 other families who have relatives and friends — American citizens and long-term permanent residents who are manifested on flights — but cannot get to the airport. 

“Absolutely no one can get to the gate,” she said in a call Wednesday evening. “Every single day this past week our friends and family have gone to the gate and cannot get through. One, there’s thousands of people, and two, the Taliban are turning people away and saying you can’t get through.”

The checkpoints are an obvious danger for those fleeing the Taliban.

“The military are the ones staffing the gates and the Taliban are the ones controlling who gets to those gates through different checkpoints,” said Sunil Varghese, policy director of the International Refugee Assistance Project.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday said that the U.S. is committed to evacuating people who assisted the U.S. military and are covered by the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program.

Blinken said the State Department is using every “diplomatic, economic assistance tool at our disposal working hand-in-hand with the international community,” to ensure that people who want to leave Afghanistan after Aug. 31 are able to do so safely. 

He also said other Afghans “will not be forgotten,” though State has taken pains to clarify that assistance for non-SIV Afghans does not necessarily mean evacuating them from Afghanistan. 

“We are committed to helping as many Afghans at risk as we possibly can, but I also don’t want to leave you or anyone with the impression that the only way to help is to put someone on a plane,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a briefing with reporters on Monday.

The administration has identified Afghans who could be Taliban targets because of their gender, ethnicity or work as a priority for evacuations, but they fall far down the list of those in line for a plane seat. 

The White House on Thursday said that more than 101,300 people have been relocated from Afghanistan since July. 

But the figure of vulnerable Afghans trying to leave the country has ballooned past the 80,000 estimated SIV cases and also include NGOs and other groups that have been struggling to get their people out with little success. 

There are still about 1,500 American citizens that the State Department is aware of who want to be evacuated, with 500 of those in contact with diplomatic staff and manifested on flights. 

“I think it’s just a matter of math,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told The Hill, expressing doubt about getting everyone out in time. 

“They weren’t able confirm how many SIVs are still in the country and given how many we know were in the country mid-August and how many family members they have I think what we’re really concerned about is that many of these people that worked directly for us and who are in the SIV pipeline, they and their families are not able to get out before that deadline and many of us feel very strongly that we need to take risks for people who risked for us.”

Varghese said many are at risk of being excluded from the evacuation on technicalities, with the SIV program closed to those who were paid through grants or didn’t work for the U.S. for at least a year.

“The Taliban doesn’t care whether your political work or work on human rights came directly through a U.S. contract or a grant, they don’t care if you worked 11 months or 13 months for the U.S. — there’s not some kind of bureaucratic screening there,” he said. 

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) said it falls to Congress to ensure future SIV applicants don’t face delays in escape.

“This has taught me a lesson that this whole process is too slow,” he told reporters Wednesday.

“We’ve got to figure out how we speed it up. We’ve had individuals that I know that have been waiting for years to get here. And especially during an evacuation period I think that there’s got to be some dialogue and conversation that we need to have here and possibly look at future legislation that can improve it.”

Asked about the possibility of Americans or Afghan allies being unable to get out before the deadline, Meeks said, “knowing how massive that task is and where we are right now, I think that there is probably a possibility of both.” 

—Updated at 4 p.m.