| Submit your comments on this article |
| Great White North |
| Afghan interpreters fear families 'forgotten' by Canada |
| 2022-05-02 |
| [BBC] In late 2011, Saifullah Mohammad Zahed was working as an interpreter for Canadian troops in Afghanistan's Kandahar province when he received a letter from the Taliban. "They said they knew I was working for 'infidels' and told me to stop," he remembers. "They said they would kill me and my family if I didn't." Soon after, Mr Zahed was able to move to Canada after six years working with Canadian and Nato forces in Kandahar, a province considered to be the birthplace of the Taliban. It wasn't an idle threat. "My dad was shot and killed by the Taliban," he told the BBC from his home in Calgary. "Since then, my family has been moving around, going from province to province. We've all been Taliban targets for a long time." Mr Zahed is one of hundreds of Afghans who worked for Canadian forces as interpreters and in other jobs. Many are hoping to get their families out of Afghanistan - where they are at risk of retribution from the victorious Taliban - and bring them to Canada. After the fall of Kabul last August, Canada's federal government vowed to welcome as many as 40,000 refugees and vulnerable Afghans to the country. As of 21 April, more than 11,300 Afghans had arrived in Canada. As part of that effort, the government in November announced a pathway to permanent residency for extended family members of Afghan interpreters already in Canada. But critics of the extended family programme have accused the government of burdening family members with unreasonable and often redundant bureaucratic hurdles - including documentation and biometrics - that result in delays. Several Afghan interpreters in Canada described dozens of pages worth of necessary documents and few, if any, possibilities of family members leaving Afghanistan to complete the required steps in safety. To date, not a single Afghan has made it to Canada through that programme. Jenny Kwan is the opposition New Democratic Party's immigration critic, and has been advocating on behalf of at least 300 Afghan families - about 5,000 people in total. She said that a primary problem is that many families still in Afghanistan are unable to safely travel to a third country where they can do the biometrics and submit the paperwork necessary to get to Canada. "They're going to have to go to an office that's run by the Taliban right now and ask for passports," she said. "As you can imagine, red flags and alarm bells go off when the entire family shows up saying they need a passport to go to Canada." Mr Zahed, for his part, said that the lives of family members still in Afghanistan are at risk each day they remain in the country. While one of his two brothers was successfully smuggled out of the country to Turkey, another - who stayed in Afghanistan - has gone missing. His fate is unknown. "The Taliban have been searching houses," he added. "I've got two other colleague that live here [in Canada] One has lost 11 [family members]since the Taliban took over. The other's sister was killed in a school. It's been really, really dangerous." Another former interpreter, Ottawa-based Ghulam Faizi, told the BBC he has 18 members of his extended family left in Afghanistan, where they are living in hiding. Three other family members have made it to Pakistan, where they have been waiting in vain for permission to travel to Canada. "They've been there three months and now their Pakistani visas have expired," he said, saying some have never received a response from Canadian officials. Many of the interpreters and those working on their behalf are frustrated by the treatment of Afghan allies when they look at how Canada is handling the process for Ukrainians fleeing war. |
| Posted by:Skidmark |