Endangered Afghans Continue to Run For Their Lives — A Year After Biden’s Abrupt Withdrawal

Afghan children attend an outdoor, co-ed school before the U.S. troop withdrawal. Photo by Guy Lawson/USAID.

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(OPINION) Just over a year ago, on Aug. 31, 2021, President Joe Biden declared:  

Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan — the longest war in American history.  We completed one of the biggest airlifts in history, with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety.  That number is more than double what most experts thought were possible.  No nation — no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history.  Only the United States had the capacity and the will and the ability to do it, and we did it today.

America’s sudden and chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan was a disgrace and a tragedy. Biden’s refusal to pursue a calculated diplomatic and military procedure for the U.S. departure inspired the Taliban’s terrorist leaders, who immediately seized lethal power over Afghanistan’s hapless, hopeless population.  

Once the announcement was made, desperation ensued. Just two days later, the world watched in horror as Afghans plummeted from a U.S. cargo aircraft taking flight from Kabul Airport, while thousands of refugees flooded the airport gates, their frightened children and elderly relatives in tow. On Aug. 26, an Islamic State group suicide bomber struck the crowd, killing 13 U.S. troops and as many as 170 civilians.  

Today, Afghanistan is the world’s No. 1 worst persecutor of Christians. And during the withdrawal, a few of us held our breath while one vulnerable Afghan Christian family of 10 fled for their lives. Could their savvy bus driver — plus our prayers — get them through a dozen Taliban checkpoints without being identified? Thankfully, they made it out, and their flight’s landing at Abu Dhabi’s “lilypad” felt like a miracle.

But Christians aren’t the only ones at risk: For 20 years, Afghan translators, drivers, warriors and informers served courageously alongside U.S. troops. They were repeatedly promised protection in the war’s aftermath. Instead, Biden’s sudden withdrawal has left thousands of Afghan allies trapped behind a formidable wall of incomplete paperwork and disinterested State Department workers. Even now, the U.S. government continues to delay or deny visas to thousands of Afghans who valiantly assisted our troops.

My friend John Friberg spent extensive time in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2017. He explained, “For some years I served as a member of U.S. Army Special Forces, then after retirement as a contractor advising on counterinsurgency. Watching district after district rapidly fall to the Taliban was unsettling for me, along with many other veterans of that conflict. There are those within the veteran community who say veterans who served in Afghanistan have suffered a moral injury.” 

John’s former driver and interpreter was a Special Immigrant Visa applicant. He contacted John in July 2021 pleading for help, and John was almost successful in getting him and his family onto a plane. But delays and policy changes left them behind and at high risk. They are now continuously evading the Taliban. “I and others who know them are assisting him with monthly food drops,” John said. “That’s all we can do.”

The U.S. government did not just betray the veterans’ trust. It also left behind international humanitarian workers, political and social activists, family members of U.S. military personnel and myriad others. These remain at grave risk due to the Taliban’s radical Islamist dictates and lethal enforcement. Meanwhile, at the top of the Taliban’s list of enemies are thousands of religious minorities. Many will be summarily executed if discovered. Some, like our Christian family of 10, have managed to escape. But untold numbers continue to have to elude the Taliban’s deadly reach.

Nina Shea noted, “Afghanistan’s religious minorities — Christians, Hazara Shiites, Hindus, Sikhs, Ahmadis, Bahais, and Jews — face veritable genocide as “infidels” and “apostates” under Taliban Islamic law, yet these groups were all excluded from U.S. priority refugee admissions status. The administration ignored repeated pleas by USCIRF and hundreds of advocates to include them in the ‘P-2’ priority visa category.”

According to humanitarian and watchdog groups, Afghan allies who assisted the U.S. military, feminists, gender-related minorities and Christian converts from Islam who remain in Afghanistan face routine torture and persecution.

Many who escaped, like our family of 10, have found themselves languishing, along with 12,000 other refugees, in the Emirates Humanitarian City. Maddeningly, their anticipated “short stay” has stretched into weeks, then nearly a year. Miseries have multiplied while hopes faded.

Then came another shocking announcement: The city would shut down in September 2022. Miraculously, our Afghan family unexpectedly received word in mid-August that they were accepted for U.S. residency. They have since arrived safely. Many others were not so fortunate.

During the evacuation flights, Shai Fund flew 9,000 at-risk passengers from Afghanistan. Its president, Charmaine Hedding, reports that around 1,500 Afghan Christians are still stranded in the Emirates Humanitarian City, while some 500 Christian fugitives remain on the run inside Afghanistan, facing execution for “apostacy.”

Meanwhile, a year after President Biden’s announced withdrawal from Afghanistan, CBS News reports that the roughly 6,500 total Afghan evacuees remaining in the UAE “have been left in limbo, uncertain of their future, unable to provide for their loved ones still suffering in Afghanistan.”

Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin served in the U.S. Army for 36 years as one of the original members of the Delta Force and commander of the Green Berets. He is also a devout Christian who has watched this unprecedented tragedy unfold. In his words:”

The Americans who served in Afghanistan during the past 20 years have been devastated by our withdrawal. Their sentiments focus on those friends of theirs who died in combat. In fact, there have been numerous suicides that can be attributed to the U.S. withdrawal and how it took place. It couldn’t have been handled worse than it was. We violated a long-standing American ethos, leaving our allies behind. And we just have to be ashamed.

Lela Gilbert is senior fellow for international religious freedom at the Family Research Council and fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom. Follow her on Facebook and on Twitter @lelagilbert.