Afghan children Are Being Abducted By Taliban Militants
The already turbulent evacuation efforts to evacuate U.S. citizens and Afghan allies from the airport in Kabul were complicated by an ISIS-K suicide bombing just outside the airport gate.
An Afghan mother and her five children remain stranded in Afghanistan with very little contact from the State Department about how or when they might be able to leave.
“It’s an open-air prison,” said a relative of the mother. “There’s no safe way to leave the country.”
In a scheduled meeting on Aug.26 between an American relative, U.S. lawmakers, and the State Department, the Afghan mother, and her children were to meet a security official at 5 p.m. outside the Abbey Gate to be safely escorted to the airport.
The terror that followed the attack forced her to flee with her children and seek shelter.
The woman’s relative, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of Taliban retaliation, said that at this time they have not been able to re-establish contact with U.S. officials.
“Kabul has gotten increasingly more dangerous,” the relative stated. “So she returned to her house, about ten hours north of Kabul. “It’s a little bit more remote, but they’re (the Taliban) still doing door-to-door checks.” the woman’s relative said.
The woman’s American cousin said she described a scene of terror unfolding throughout Afghanistan with Afghans attempting to flee to surrounding Tajikistan to the north and Pakistan to the east.
“She said she spoke to people who had actually gone to the Tajikistan border and they (the Taliban) were conducting searches of people in the vehicles,” the relative said. “If you had younger boys they were recruiting them and taking them and not allowing them to cross.”
The American relative described a similar scene for those attempting to flee to Pakistan, where daughters have allegedly been taken by members of the Taliban.
Ahmed Mohammed, legal director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that “fear is driving” rumors across Afghanistan.
“It’s a frustrating process, to say the least.” Mohammed said. “There just doesn’t seem to be a lot of direction either from congressional offices or from the State Department.”