November 23, 2021 By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi A former high-ranking member of Afghan special forces and commando units has issued a plea urging U.S. officials to move remaining members of the force to the United States to avoid a “humanitarian catastrophe.” The former high-ranking member, who ask not to be identified by name, sent a statement
VOA News November 23, 2021 A flight carrying more than 100 Afghans arrived Monday in northern Greece. According to Greek officials, the group of 119 people included Mohibullah Samim, Afghanistan’s former minister of border and tribal affairs, as well as a lawyer who prosecuted Taliban fighters, women’s rights activists and a female judge. The evacuees
NBC News: The last two of more than 270 students, faculty and staff from Afghanistan’s only music school have left the country in the wake of the Taliban takeover, the institution’s founder said on Thursday. “It was extremely emotional,” the Afghanistan National Institute of Music’s founder and director Ahmad Sarmast said of students he greeted
AP: More than 28,000 Afghans have applied for temporary admission into the U.S. for humanitarian reasons since shortly before the Taliban recaptured Afghanistan and sparked a chaotic U.S. withdrawal, but only about 100 of them have been approved, according to federal officials. Click here to read more (external link). Related Biden administration considering sending some
The Guardian (UK): Months after Mohadese Mirzaee became Afghanistan’s first female commercial airline pilot, the Taliban took Kabul. Now a refugee in Bulgaria, she is determined to fly again. Click here to read more (external link).
Reuters: As many as 4,000-5,000 Afghans have been crossing into Iran daily since the Taliban seized Kabul in August and hundreds of thousands more are expected to arrive in the coming winter, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on Wednesday. Click here to read more (external link).
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,
Cycling News: Afghan cyclist Rukhsar Habibzai will continue with her racing dreams, despite being forced to leave her country as part of the mass evacuation of vulnerable citizens who faced targeted gender violence by the Taliban. The member of the Afghanistan women’s cycling team nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016, has relocated to
DW: Rights groups say hundreds of Afghans fled to neighboring Uzbekistan to escape the Taliban. But, without official refugee status in the Central Asian country, they are vulnerable and could face deportation. Click here to read more (external link).