SHENGJIN (AP/The Independent) – Almost two years since he fled Afghanistan to escape the Taliban takeover, Firooz Mashoof is still haunted by the memory of his last day in Kabul — the bus that took him to the airport, getting on a packed plane and taking off as gunfire echoed across the city.
“The last thing I saw were the mountains around Kabul and the dreary sunset as the Qatar Airways took off,” he said.
Today, thousands of miles from his homeland, the 35-year-old photojournalist and former employee of the Afghan soccer federation, is languishing in warm and sunny Albania. With each passing day, his anxiety grows over the delay in the promised U.S. visa, casting a shadow on his dreams of a new beginning in America.
For hundreds of others like him, it’s an emotional roller coaster. Some try to find work and live with a semblance of normalcy but the concern and fear for families back home permeates their days — even in welcoming Albania.
They are hopeful, despite the prolonged bureaucracy, and look to a new life.
In Shengjin, a town on the Adriatic coast some 70 kilometers (45 miles) northwest of the Albanian capital of Tirana where hundreds of Afghans were given temporary shelter, Mashoof often goes for long walks by the sea. He has found work at a mall, an hour’s bus ride away.
The walks stave off panic attacks that he has been forgotten — or the “crazy fear” for his family back in western Herat province.
“I was saved, ... and now I am to start my new life in America,” he said, “But when?”
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final weeks of their withdrawal from the country after two decades of occupation and as the U.S.-backed Afghan government and military crumbled.
Despite initial promises of a more moderate rule, they soon started to enforce restrictions on women and girls, barring them from public spaces and most jobs, and banning education for girls beyond the sixth grade.
The measures harked back to the previous Taliban rule of Afghanistan in the late 1990s, when they also imposed their strict rules. The harsh rule prompted an international outcry against the already ostracized Taliban, whose administration has not been officially recognized by the United Nations or the international community.
As the Taliban pursued an ever more hard-line path, a severe economic downturn followed, despite efforts by aid agencies to help large swaths of the impoverished nation.
In the days of the chaotic pullout, Washington had decided to take in all those who had worked for the U.S. government and American troops or for U.S.-based media organizations and nongovernmental groups in Afghanistan. But over time, the complicated visa process for Afghans who demonstrate they are at risk of persecution became protracted.
Meanwhile, an Afghan pilot who flew combat missions alongside British and U.S. forces against the Taliban said he feels “abandoned” after his UK resettlement application was rejected, the Independent reported on Saturday.
The unnamed former lieutenant in the Afghan Air Force arrived in the UK on a small boat that crossed the English Channel because there were no safe routes for him to use, he said.
The pilot, who flew more than 30 combat missions against the Taliban, is being threatened with deportation to Rwanda after his application to the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (Arap) scheme was rejected on the grounds that he was “not eligible.”
The pilot was told that he did not meet the criteria for Arap because of its requirement to have been “directly employed” or “in partnership” with the UK government, armed forces or contractors, the Independent reported.