Thousands of Canada’s allies, their families still stranded in Afghanistan

Abdul Ahmadullah used to think it was just the Taliban he needed to fear as he waited to flee Afghanistan for a new life in Canada.

Then came the letters. Posted a week ago on hotels in Kabul housing former employees of foreign militaries and governments, they warned that the local branch of the ISIS terrorist group was now coming after them.

“The situation in Kabul for us interpreters is very dangerous,” said Ahmadullah, who was employed by the Canadian army in Kandahar from 2007 to 2011.

“The situation in Kabul for us interpreters is very dangerous.”

He and his family are not alone. They’re among thousands of ex-employees of Canada’s armed forces, government and federally funded NGOs and their dependents who face grave risk because of that work, but were stranded in Afghanistan after a chaotic airlift ended in August .

The government set up a special immigration program in June to expedite the admission of such Afghans with “enduring relationships” to Canada. Relatively few made it onto the C-17 Globemaster planes the Canadian Forces flew out of Kabul this summer as the Taliban seized control of the country.

Some have managed to escape to Canada since then by travelling overland first to Pakistan.

But more than two months later, the majority continue to wait in limbo, many hunkered down in safe houses funded by cash-strapped private groups in Canada.

Aman Lara, one of several veterans and other non-governmental organizations helping them, provides accommodation in Kabul to hundreds of Afghans, most of whom fled from Kandahar, site of Canada’s 2006-2011 combat mission. But it says it can’t afford to run the safe houses past Nov. 5.

Shifting rules from Pakistan — a long-time ally of the Taliban — on what documentation is needed to cross its border with Afghanistan explains some of the delays.

But many applicants are still waiting for final approval from Canada. And some have yet to even receive a response from Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), their helpers say.

“I’m frustrated for them,” said B.C.’s Lauryn Oates of her employees at a women’s-rights NGO in Afghanistan. “But it also makes me worried about my government. This is how they operate in a life-and-death situation. It just seems like such a dysfunctional process.”

The Canadian embassy actually alerted Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan about the special immigration program before it was publicized, and all 27 local staff members applied, said the executive director.