Reuters: Tajik officials blamed U.S. bureaucracy on Wednesday for a near three-month delay in evacuating U.S.-trained Afghan pilots, who had flown their aircraft to Tajikistan to escape the Taliban takeover of their country in August. Click here to read more (external link). Related Taliban urge ex-Afghan military pilots to stay, serve nation Afghan Pilots Land
By RFE/RL’s Tajik Service November 9, 2021 Around 150 U.S.-trained Afghan pilots are preparing to depart Tajikistan to be relocated to the United States after nearly three months of detention, pilots and U.S. Embassy officials said. The 143 pilots and about 50 other Afghans, including journalists, are waiting at the airport in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe,
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty October 21, 2021 Human Rights Watch (HRW) is calling on United Nations agencies and governments to increase their support for Afghans at risk who are seeking to flee their homeland or have already fled and are now in countries neighboring Afghanistan, transit countries, and countries of resettlement. In a new policy briefing
AP: More than 100 students, alumni and faculty members of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music have been flown out of Kabul on their way to Portugal, where the government has agreed to grant them asylum, the institute’s director said Monday. Click here to read more (external link).
Al Jazeera: The Taliban’s abrupt return to power has left hundreds of Afghan diplomats overseas in limbo: running out of money to keep missions operating, fearful for families back home and desperate to secure refuge abroad. “I am literally begging. Diplomats are willing to become refugees,”… Click here to read more (external link).
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 16, 2021 Human rights and refugee groups are urging to the European Union to step up its protection for Afghans trying to flee their country following the Taliban’s takeover last month. “The EU should be sharing, rather than shirking, the responsibility to offer them protection,” Amnesty International, Caritas Europa, and
By RFE/RL’s Tajik Service September 13, 2021 DUSHANBE — Tajik authorities say they have accepted around 100 Afghan nationals from a group of more than 200 people, including many women and children, who crossed the border overnight to flee Afghanistan because of the Taliban’s takeover of the country. Multiple sources in the local government in Tajikistan’s
After undergoing the traumatic experience of leaving their home country, thousands of Afghans are relieved to be in the United States. Many are finding, however, that they have been granted temporary status, forbidding them to work or attend school. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti takes a look at how evacuees are coping with the lack of
VOA News September 12, 2021 Some Afghan pilots who have been held in Uzbekistan for about a month began leaving Sunday for the United Arab Emirate, Reuters reported. A U.S.-trained Afghan pilot told Reuters that one group would depart Uzbekistan on Sunday for the UAE under a U.S.-brokered deal, despite Taliban demands that they return
CNN: US officials processing Afghan refugees abroad recently alerted the State Department to instances in which women and girls were forced into marriage or arrived with male partners posing as their husbands to be eligible for evacuation and escape the Taliban, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Click here to read more (external