Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Constant Danger
The other day I watched an HBO video on the days leading up to the air lift of thousands of people from Kabul, in Afghanistan. August 31, 2021, was the deadline for the US troops to be out of the country after a brutal 20 year war. The plan was also to get thousands of civilians, both US citizens and Afghan citizens who had been helpful to the war effort.
The documentary was riveting as it showed the US efforts to maintain some kind of control at the Hamid Karzai airport. As a result of the rapid fall of Kabul to the Taliban, thousands of Afghanis surrounded the airport begging to get in to the only area that was not under Taliban control. Many of them breached the three gates and milled around on the runways, making it impossible for airplanes to take off or land.
Finally, the troops were able to get the gates secured in an attempt to restore order and begin to process civilians wanting to flee Afghanistan. That still left thousands of people outside of the gates pleading for their lives. The crowd was so dense that several people were crushed to death.
The film also showed interviews with Taliban men, who were gloating over their easy takeover of the capitol. Some of them assured the interviewers that they had no intention of murdering civilians, no intention to force women to stop work or stop their education, and every intention of restoring Afghanistan to Sharia law. The disconnect is that Sharia law is incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy, according to the European Human Rights Court. As it turns out, the Taliban has resumed its practice of keeping women under strict restrictions, and enemies of the state are being assassinated.
On August 26, a suicide bomber outside of the airport successfully killed over 180 people. The film was graphic in its depiction of the carnage that resulted. Thirteen members of the US military were killed. Body parts were strewn around a large area, including a sewage canal that ran alongside the fence on one side of the airport.
In the end, over 122,000 people were airlifted out. Not all of them by the United States, because many other countries assisted in this effort to get their own nationals out of Kabul. I think the USA rescued over 80,000 souls.
I watched this documentary because I have several clients from Afghanistan who still have family there, or some who have fled to Pakistan. I remember my clients’ despair last August as they watched what was happening half way around the world. One client had a happy ending because her husband was able to be a part of the airlift and now they are together. Another client who recently became a citizen wants our help to petition for her parents who have left their home and gone to Pakistan. It is a complicated process that takes a long time to get approval, let alone get a visa to come here. We will do the work and pray for a good outcome.
But yesterday was a big day. I have a client family – two adults and three children – who are here on what is called a “Special Immigrant Visa”, or SIV. The dad was a translator for US troops. He and his family are part of the “SIV Operation Welcome Allies” who were relocated to St. Louis. Yesterday I took a very large packet to Fedex that contained five complicated files. The files will be processed and result in Green Cards for this family, who now call St. Louis home.
One of the many touching parts of the documentary was Afghan citizens talking about leaving their homes to start new lives in countries that are foreign to everything they have known. Although I have never met my clients in person, I have felt both their pain at leaving, and their relief at finding a safe place to live. The husband has a job, his wife is attending English classes, and the two kids who are old enough are enrolled in school. May God make their paths safe and happy.