An uncertain future for Afghans who fled on evacuation flights

DOHA • Walking down the tarmac of the US military airbase at about 2am recently, the Afghan woman lunged for a handgun strapped to an American airman's leg.

As service members restrained her, she shrieked and thrashed, determined to kill herself. Then, she crumpled into a ball and sobbed.

Her family had been killed during the Taliban's rapid takeover in Afghanistan and she had barely managed to get on a flight out of Kabul. Now, she was outside her homeland, all alone.

"Please, please, please," she gasped, the orange lights from buses crowded with evacuees flashing across her tear-soaked face.

Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, the exodus of Afghans has swelled like a flash flood, inundating US military bases in places like Qatar, where tens of thousands of evacuees have arrived over the past two weeks.

But as international evacuations wind down, attention has turned to the fates of those who were part of the sudden and unanticipated mass exodus. In just two weeks, 6,000 American troops in the capital Kabul helped evacuate more than 120,000 people in a chaotic and often violent effort.

After the insurgents entered Kabul, desperate scrums of people descended on the city's international airport, where they clambered onto evacuation flights. Upon landing in Qatar, some Afghans fell to their knees in tears after disembarking, thinking they had arrived in the US.

But that hope was extinguished after they were shuttled to a refugee processing centre run by the US military in a large aircraft hangar - their first glimpse into a long, gruelling journey towards eventually resettling in the US.

At the processing centres, the relief of escaping Afghanistan under Taliban rule has collided with the hardships of leaving a homeland and starting life anew. Amid the exodus, the collective sense of mourning for what Afghanistan once was has given way to fear for what their lives will become outside of it.

Since arriving in Qatar, Zahra has been replaying the warning a Taliban guard gave her: Once she left, she will never be allowed back.

Like others interviewed for this article, she asked that only her first name be used to avoid reprisals.

"Thinking about my family, their situation, I am not mentally well," said Zahra, 28, who left for Doha last week. "And then in America, we don't know what will happen there: Will we find a job, will we settle in a good place, will we make better lives for ourselves?"

Overstretched American military personnel have worked around the clock to provide medical care, food and water to the unexpected flood of arrivals while immigration officers vet them.

But the initial influx of Afghans outpaced the ability to screen them, raising concerns that a humanitarian disaster was unfolding in the processing centres.

To ease the strain on the transit hub in Doha, the US military began sending evacuees to its bases in Germany, Italy, Spain and Bahrain. In Doha, more than 100 additional toilets and cleaning and catering services have been added to improve conditions.

Mirwais, 31, arrived at the airbase in Qatar after clambering onto an American evacuation flight last week. A former translator for US forces and international organisations, he decided to leave after Taliban insurgents searching for him visited his mother's home.

"If I were in Afghanistan, I would be dead right now," he said.

After days of desperate calls to relatives to try to get his wife and 10-month-old child evacuated, Mirwais said he had all but given up on reuniting with them outside Afghanistan. His ability to travel to the US is still anything but certain.

"I have no passport with me, no papers," he said. "But if I can't go on to the United States, what will happen to me? How will I support my family?"

NYTIMES