Continue Support to Afghan Refugees: Paula Claycomb

by Paula Claycomb

The below was published in my town’s weekly newspaper on 9 Dec. I adapted it slightly for the xUNICEF News and Views. 

Wednesday, December 15, will be four months since horrific photos and videos dominated the media, showing chaos in Kabul, Afghanistan, as the US withdrew its forces and closed its embassy, thus ending our country’s longest war. That was the day former Afghani President Ashraf Ghani fled to the United Arab Emirates, allowing the Taliban to take over – for the second time -- in a country-wide blitz for which they had long been preparing.

I served with UNICEF’s Afghanistan Country Office, in Islamabad, Pakistan, from 1998 to 2001. The UN system had evacuated from Kabul to Peshawar, then to Islamabad. I returned to Kabul in 2013, 12 years into the US-led war that continued until this past August. Today, I cannot forget the millions of Afghan refugees and displaced persons, forced from their homes before and during an emergency of our own making. Some Afghan colleagues from UNICEF and other national and international agencies were able to push their way through the crowds and get onto one of the outgoing flights. Others were unable to reach the airport gate and remain in hiding. Some stay with neighbors and friends who place themselves at risk for supporting these Afghans who worked for international organizations. Like translators who served the US military, these aid workers are currently at high risk, some taken away to unknown fates. I heard last week about a colleague who has not left his home since that fateful day in August. 

Another woman colleague – the only woman UNICEF staff member during the first Taliban regime – is fearful for her and her husband’s lives as they have provided shelter to survivors of domestic violence and to members of the LGBTQ community. She has been approved for a visa to the US but as there is no official US presence in Afghanistan, she must wait indefinitely for the machinery set up in Qatar to reach her name. She is trying to leave Afghanistan for another country to submit her already approved forms to have her and her husband’s visas processed. 

Some 70,000 of the children, women and men who made it onto planes out of their beloved country are in the US. Most await medical and security clearance before being released from seven military bases around the country. It saddens me to think that they are considered the lucky ones. 

The largest Afghan evacuee population in the US is in Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, currently housing 13,000 refugees. That is almost twice the size of the town of Taos. Closer to home, Holloman Air Force Base outside Alamogordo (in southern New Mexico) hosts a “rolling average” of 4,500 Afghans, about the combined size of Ranchos de Taos and El Prado. Imagine our community being displaced to a country so much larger and so different from ours! And yet … as I learned during my years abroad, people are the same everywhere, wanting only the best for their children and willingly sharing their food and drink. In Kabul, I was made homesick by the hollyhocks, and in other Afghan cities by the mountainous, high desert terrain which reminded me of northern New Mexico.

At Holloman, the place where these so-called “guests” are housed is called Aman Omid Village – roughly, “peace” and “hope”. The federal government bears most of the costs of providing housing, food, health care, and education for these Afghan families and individuals while they are staying on military bases. Once they are released, usually to places where they have family or friends, Afghan families or individuals are sponsored by organizations such as Lutheran Family Services. 

Our local branch of Sin Fronteras recently delivered supplies to the Islamic Center of New Mexico in Albuquerque. The Taos Jewish Center is collecting funds to co-sponsor 1 or 2 Afghan families through Lutheran Family Services. This requires $6,000 per family. Still others in Taos have donated to cover visa costs for individuals attempting to get their family members out of Afghanistan. 

I know the needs of current immigrants to our community are great. Whether they arrived years or months ago, please remember that very few people leave their homes and countries willingly. And in this terrible situation, most have left with nothing more than their personal documents and the clothes on their backs. If you wish to receive occasional updates about efforts in Taos or to contribute supplies or money, please consider TJC, Sin Fronteras, Lutheran Family Services or a small but mighty organization in Albuquerque, Umoja ABQ. You may also write to me at paula.claycomb@gmail.com. Thank you.

Paula Claycomb and Niloufar Pourzand with Afghan women trainers,

Islamabad, 1999. Photographer unknown.