Afghan Canadians ‘feel helpless’ watching horror in homeland

Many Afghan Canadians say they’re feeling fearful and helpless as they watch from afar as the Taliban takes over Afghanistan once again, and they are calling on Canada to increase its initial commitments to take in those trying to flee the rebel group.

“They’re so desperate they keep calling asking is there anything we can do to bring them here,” says Neelofer Mansuri, an Afghan Canadian woman living in Toronto.

Mansuri says she’s been receiving hundreds of messages daily from people in Afghanistan. Some from people she knows, others she does not.

“Women, students who have messaged me. They say, ‘I know you don’t know me but please I can’t explain, I can’t be here right now,’ says Mansuri. “They’re afraid of being killed.”

“You feel helpless here as an Afghan Canadian, knowing there’s really nothing you can do right now because of the catastrophe that’s going on back home, and the chaos with the airport being the only method of escape and travel,” she adds.

Videos posted on social media show people clinging to departing airplanes and rushing the gates at Kabul’s international airport on Monday. Senior U.S. military officials say the chaos at the airport has left seven people dead, including some who fell from a departing American military transport jet.

Mansuri says people living in Afghanistan are afraid because they don’t know what will come next. In recent months, the Taliban has re-seized power in regions across Afghanistan, culminating in Sunday’s takeover of capital city Kabul.

Their gains come just weeks before the U.S. is set to finish withdrawing its troops, after two decades of conflict.

Taliban leaders have promised an era of peace, but Mansuri says Afghans are skeptical.

“With past history and proof and evidence of what we’ve seen in Afghanistan through this past couple of years, for a lot of people that’s hard to believe,” she says. “That’s why we’re seeing the chaos, that’s why we’re seeing people trying to leave as soon as possible.”

Canada has pledged to take in 20,000 Afghan refugees in the coming months, through government, private and family sponsorship. Khalidha Nasiri, executive director of Afghan Youth Engagement and Development Initiative, says while she’s pleased that’s happening, more needs to be done.

“Those refugees are people who are already within the system,” she explains. “It doesn’t include people who are trapped within Afghanistan and want to get out.”

Nasiri adds this humanitarian crisis is taking place during another crisis.

“Those people need shelter, they need basic necessities of life,” she says “We can’t forget this is all happening against the back top of a pandemic. They need vaccines and medical supplies as well.”

The Afghan Canadians CityNews spoke to helped launch the Canadian Campaign for Afghan Peace today. It’s been created to demand the federal government take further action, and to ensure politicians don’t get distracted from the issue by the election.

There are links to aid organizations working in Afghanistan on the CityNews Extras page.