by Lara Logan
Afghan refugees learned this week they are going to be deported back to their home country.
In a stunning shift, officials in the United Arab Emirates who have given refuge to Afghan allies of the United States for more than four years appear to have made a deal to turn them over to the Taliban.
President Donald Trump now has in his hands the fate of these Afghans, who were stranded and abandoned by President Joe Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
According to first-hand accounts of some in the group, UAE officials came without warning to deliver the news, sowing panic among the group of thirty-two Afghan men, women and children who were staying in the refugee camp in Abu Dhabi, where they have effectively been held for the past four years.
“They took my son, they took my son."
Those were the only words I could make out amidst the screaming and tears when the voice message came to me halfway across the world in the dead of night on Friday.
UAE security guards forced refugees to leave their homes and prepare to be sent back to Afghanistan.
A report had just been published in The Telegraph detailing the murder of some two hundred Afghan soldiers and police officers who were hunted down by the Taliban regime after a data leak in the UK.
The victims were people who helped the U.S. oust the Taliban and defeat the al Qaeda terrorists responsible for the deaths of almost 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001. Biden’s administration promised they would not be left behind to die.
“The Secretary of State is personally committed to keeping our promises to those who stood by us in Afghanistan and to relocating them safely," they were told in writing by the Biden State Department.
The refugees in UAE followed the legal process and the instructions of representatives of the U.S. State Department but now they face a terrifying future.
On Wednesday, members of the group said their passports were taken by the officials running the camp, a sprawling complex that was once filled with over a thousand refugees just like them.
Over the years, that number had dwindled. Some went to the U.S., others to Canada, Australia and elsewhere.
The Tahiri family of 11 that I helped get there, who I have known for over twenty years, had been fully processed and vetted, security screening completed without issue and the final step. The medical screening was also completed.
I remember their excitement and relief back in July 2023 when they called me to tell me they had been told to get ready to fly to the United States. They were prepared to go anywhere to survive and had never turned down any offers but the U.S. had always been their first choice. After losing everything, they believed they would finally be safe.
Only that never happened. They waited and waited. Then two years later, the day after they were forced to surrender their passports to camp officials, they said they were ordered to come to the hall. And when the camp’s director entered he was surrounded by Taliban officials, including the Taliban “ambassador” to the UAE.
Members of the group said they were told “things would be easier for them in Kabul” if they chose to “self-deport”.
Their fate at this moment remains uncertain. Various U.S. officials
have been reaching out to counterparts in the UAE to understand what
happened and try to pause the deportations.
While many Americans
have understandably moved on, these Afghan allies have not had that
choice. Their country has not known a moment of freedom, and their
enemies are more powerful than ever.
Afghan women who served in their Special Operations Forces are among those facing deportation now at a second camp. Their fate should they be returned is one many would consider worse than death.
Lara Logan
Source: https://justthenews.com/world/middle-east/lara-logan-piece
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