Afghans in America desperately trying to get their families to safety

(CNN) – Suneeta hasn’t been able to sleep in days. Instead, she has been constantly calling and texting her four children, all under the age of 18 – the youngest just 7 years old – who are hiding alone in an apartment in Kabul, Afghanistan, thousands of miles from her home in Albany, New York.

She is scared and restless and said she has been unable to go to work or do anything but worry since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan and retaken the country’s capital on Sunday. With the fighters controlling the streets of the city, his children are afraid to go out, he said, even for a quick trip to the nearby supermarket.

Suneeta, who did not want CNN to release her full name or that of her children for safety reasons, said she fears the children are in serious danger because her husband worked with US troops before his disappearance about eight years ago.

Now all she wants is to take her children to Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport and to Albany.

“I am lost and my soul is with my children,” she told CNN through an interpreter. “I am asking for everyone, especially President Joe Biden, to help us, my family and my children,” he added.

Since Kabul’s fall to the Taliban, Afghans living in the United States have been quick to get their families out of Afghanistan, appealing to their neighbors, friends and government officials in the hope that someone can help.

The Taliban say they will grant “blanket amnesty” for everyone, but many who remember the horrors of the group’s previous government are skeptical of the promise and say the intimidation cases have already begun.

And like Suneeta, many of those working frantically from the United States to get their families out worry about the retaliation their loved ones may face for supporting US forces.

“This is like a nightmare,” said the mother of four. “I’m very scared,” she admitted.

There is no safe way out for Afghans

Sara Lowry, an attorney for the U.S. Committee on Refugees and Immigrants who has been working with Suneeta since her move in 2018, said the U.S. government approved humanitarian parole – a status that allows people under immediate threat to seek refuge. in the United States – for minors. But they have not been able to get a visa issued since that approval in June 2020, Lowry said.

The lawyer is asking the US government to help organize an escort for the children, who are unsupervised and in hiding, to the airport and to help them get them to the United States.

“We are terrified that we cannot get these kids out,” Lowry said.

“If there are other countries that are willing to go looking for them, if there are still journalists in the city who are willing to be an escort for them, we are appealing … to everyone, everywhere, please help us,” he added.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon and the State Department issued conflicting statements about the ability of American and Afghan citizens to reach the Kabul airport. While the State Department said it could not guarantee safe transit to the airlift, the Pentagon said the Taliban are “ensuring safe passage” for US citizens.

Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman told reporters that officials are aware of reports that the Taliban, “contrary to their public statements and commitments to our government, are preventing Afghans who wish to leave the country arrive at the airport. “

A Colorado man who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity said he moved to the United States with his wife in 2014 after helping US forces for several years in Afghanistan. After Biden’s announcement that American troops would be withdrawing from the country, his wife and children decided to visit his family for the summer, unsure of what the future of Afghanistan would look like after the Americans left.

But he said that this week, a day before the scheduled date to fly back to the United States, they received a message that their flight had been canceled. The man said he called his friends in Afghanistan to ask if they could accompany his family to the airport, but they were all afraid to do so.

“There are Taliban in every city,” he said, adding that he has heard that militants have set up checkpoints to stop and search people who pass by. “If they find any evidence or documentation that shows that you have been an ally of the US forces … they would make you a victim. That is one of the reasons why my family cannot go to the airport,” he added.

He said a friend was finally able to transport his wife and children to the airport, where they boarded a plane to Qatar. But he said the rest of his family, including his mother and siblings, are still hiding in Kabul.

Many fear that their families will face retaliation

One man, who spoke to CNN’s Don Lemon from New Mexico Tuesday under the alias “Srosh,” said he worked as a translator with US forces. For his work, he said the Taliban shot and killed his brother outside their home in 2014.

“I lost my brother because he worked with Americans, and I still have my family there,” he said. “I don’t want to lose another brother,” he added.

Srosh told his family in Kabul to stay home instead of going to the airport, where heartbreaking images emerged this week of crowds trying to flee the country, and is now working to find alternative ways to get them out of Afghanistan.

“I helped the Americans on the battlefield and now I need help. I need help as soon as possible. I desperately need help,” he said. “I want them to remove (my family) as soon as possible,” he insisted.

Ismail Khan, who spent several years alongside US troops as a translator, is now in Seattle and working to get not only his family but many other families out of Afghanistan.

“My story is the story of every Afghan who helped US forces in Afghanistan,” Khan told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Wednesday night. “I separated my family in four different places to make sure they are safe,” he said.

He said he has not been able to sleep at night because he has been receiving calls and emails from Afghanistan from families who are “asking for help” and asking him to remove them from a “death zone”.

“I was talking to my mom and I said, if something happens to any of you, I’ll blame myself for the rest of my life,” he told Cuomo. “My brothers are young, they have never seen the Taliban government, they have never seen how savage and ruthless they are.”

More testimonials

Sam, a former US Army interpreter, spoke to Cuomo under that alias the day before and said he is also trying to get his family to safety thousands of miles away.

His family lives in northern Afghanistan and cannot get to Kabul and the airport, he said.

“They have to go through those provinces that (are) heavily controlled by the Taliban and that is not safe enough. That is even (more) dangerous than staying at home,” he said.

Sam said that despite the Taliban’s promise of “amnesty”, Afghans do not believe the group will keep its word and said he has already heard reports from locals that Taliban militants are searching homes.

Sam said that while the U.S. military promised that it would help keep its Afghan allies and their families safe and help them evacuate, he is now tripping over walls trying to get his family out of the country, especially now. that the US embassy in Kabul has been evacuated.

“I feel like we are abandoned. I have a brother (who) worked for more than a decade with the German forces. Right now he is in Kabul,” Sam said. “He has his visas and passport in his pocket, but he cannot take any flights.”

And with the Taliban checkpoints, he fears his brother will be caught and the militants will find out he was an ally of foreign forces.

“I can’t sleep at night just because of that,” Sam said. “Just thinking he has another week to live.”