On the run and hiding in a hole: Thousands of Afghans who helped Canada still facing Taliban vengeance

By Tom Blackwell, National Post, August 11, 2022 —‘The (Canadian) government is just ambiguously silent to the vast majority of these people. No one is getting any kind of answer back’

A year after Canada and its allies staged a chaotic airlift from Kabul as the insurgents seized power, thousands of those ex-employees and their families remain stranded in Afghanistan.

Some have been tentatively approved by Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) under that “special immigration measure” but can’t get out. Many others have received nothing more than an acknowledgement of their initial application. Still others are in neighbouring Pakistan, waiting for final word.

“We shouldn’t be having a one-year anniversary,” says Oliver Thorne of the Veterans Transition Network, among the groups working to get Afghan ex-employees to safety. “It is disheartening that we are still facing a lot of the same problems we were a year ago…. To be left waiting for an answer for months and months is not good enough.”

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