ABANDONED
Desperate Afghans stranded as Canada to end humanitarian airlifts
Canada’s evacuation flights out of Kabul are likely to end Thursday, stranding thousands of imperilled ex-employees of this country, advocates for the local workers said Wednesday.
Private NGOS helping the interpreters and others say government officials have indicated the flights have to stop well before the Aug. 31 deadline for U.S. forces to leave Afghanistan, so there’s time to wrap up the Canadian presence there.
Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said as much at a news conference Wednesday.
Two NGO volunteers, one on the ground at the Kabul airport, said they understand the final Canadian evacuation aircraft was actually arriving Wednesday night and will leave Kabul Thursday.
Siobhan Calnan, a retired Canadian Forces nurse helping a former interpreter, says a government source told her Wednesday that Afghans already inside the Hamid Karzai International Airport would get a flight out. No one else, however, would be leaving.
The Afghan-canadian volunteer in Kabul — who asked not to be named because of his work with the government — said Canadian personnel told him to get on the plane leaving Wednesday himself because he might not escape otherwise.
Erin O’toole said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had failed to properly prepare for the evacuation. “I would never abandon people like Mr. Trudeau has,” he said.
Advocates say about 80 per cent of the people they’ve been aiding were still in the city Wednesday, as the C-17 “Globemaster” transport jets have mostly airlifted out Canadian citizens and permanent residents.
Those who risked being left behind feared for the worst.
“I can smell what these guys (the Taliban) are going to do,” said Abdul Ahmadullah, a former interpreter for the Canadian military waiting Wednesday at a safe house in Kabul with his wife and five children. “I know I will go through lots of hard times with these people. They are not merciful people.”
Dave Fraser, a retired Canadian army general with the Veterans Transition Network, said less than 20 per cent of the 1,000 employees and family members his group is helping had been airlifted out as of Wednesday.
“The question is what’s the plan for those people,” he said. “I don’t see a plan yet .... We cannot abandon them. They’ve got to feel that there’s still hope for their situation.”
As of Wednesday, Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said Canada had airlifted more than 2,700 people out of Kabul airport. These included Afghan refugees, Canadian citizens, permanent residents and citizens of other nations.
But he admitted in a press conference Wednesday, “Once the coalition withdraws the military evacuation concludes.”
Canada must lobby the Taliban — which is anxious to maintain crucial foreign aid and “needs us” — to give this country’s one-time employees free passage out, said Fraser.
Calnan and a friend still in the service have been helping an ex-interpreter from the “role-3” combat hospital at Kandahar Air Field that Canada ran during its combat mission in the province. He and seven family members — all with Canadian transit approval and valid Afghan passports — have tried three times in vain to get into the airport, which is surrounded by chaotic crowds and Taliban fighters.
Once, the interpreter and his eight-year-old son were beaten by the militants and forced to the ground at gunpoint, she said. Now they’re in hiding in Kabul.
“If we ever get another option to get my interpreter and his family out, how do I convince him to listen to our advice after what he’s been through,” Calnan asked. “I’m so embarrassed to be a Canadian.”
Sajjan said the U.S. and its 6,000 personnel are providing security and leading the airlift operation so it has to be the last to exit the compound on Aug. 31.
“Drawing down a mission takes a considerable amount of time,” he told a media briefing. “It is not done overnight and it comes with considerable risk .... We remain dedicated to evacuating as many people as we can in the limited time we have left.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau said the security situation keeps deteriorating, and that with time running out, “there is a possibility that we’re not going to be able to bring everyone that we want to when the air bridge stops.”
He said that Canada would by lobbying the Taliban to allow any Afghans who desire it to leave the country.
“There will be discussions with the Taliban; they are the regime that is in place in the country,” he said. “And all of this will unfold in the coming days.”
But the veterans groups and other non-governmental advocates that have been instrumental in helping former local employees voiced dismay and desperation Wednesday at how the evacuation was handled.
Canada’s promise to take in 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan raised expectations, only for the interpreters and others to face endless red tape to get approval from Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada, said a volunteer for one of the NGOS. He asked to withhold his name because of his work with government officials. Once they won approval, he said, they had to endure a punishing, gruelling trek to get to the airport.
“There was this huge, huge over-promise (by the federal government) and a massive under-delivery,” said the volunteer.
Calnan said her friend submitted applications on behalf of the Kandahar interpreter and his family. But the Canadian still had difficulty, even with her high-end laptop computer and fast internet connection. After days or weeks of silence, she would be asked to resubmit documents because of minor errors.
Calnan said Canada ought to have evacuated the endangered ex-employees to a third country first, then done that processing.
Ahmadullah worked as an interpreter for the Canadian Forces from 2007 to 2011, earning high praise from officers he helped. He fled Kandahar in June with his wife and five children, but they’ve languished in a privately funded Kabul safe house ever since.
A Canadian army officer who’s helping him suggested he develop a backup plan to get to neighbouring Pakistan — 240 kilometres away — then appeal to the Canadian high commission there. He’s unsure if that will be possible, but said staying in Kabul is not an option.
“Once the Canadians leave in four days, two days, we can’t stay here,” he said. “We have to go. I’ve got to run for my life.”