WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – At least 1,450 Afghan children have been evacuated to the United States without their parents, and some may never be reunited with their families, the U.S. media reported.
At least 1,450 Afghan children have been evacuated to the U.S. without their parents in the early days of the evacuation process, CNN has reported.
Many of these children remember their families while sleeping, the media added.
According to CNN, these children were transferred to the U.S. in August.
It is said that many of these children may not be able to reunite with their families.
This statistic, obtained in a recent CNN research from the Asylum Office, contains a destructive message about the evacuation process and its consequences.
“It is shocking that more than a thousand Afghan children are homeless in the U.S.,” said Dr. Sabrina Parino, an Afghan-American pediatrician in California.
These children are potentially feeling lonely and afraid and are waiting for foster parents, she added.
Meanwhile, about 12,000 Afghan refugees will begin 2022 in UK hotels as the government struggles to persuade enough councils to find permanent homes for the new arrivals, according to a report.
Of the 16,500 people airlifted from Afghanistan to the UK since August, “over 4,000 individuals have either moved into a settled home or are in the process of being moved or matched to a suitable home”, according to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), The Guardian reported.
The rest wait eagerly for news of where they will begin to rebuild their lives, though many say their hearts remain in Afghanistan, where they hope to return one day.
Inside Afghanistan, a crowd of women marched through the capital on Tuesday, accusing Taliban authorities of covertly killing soldiers who served the former U.S.-backed regime.
The women gathered near a mosque in the centre of Kabul and marched a few hundred meters chanting “justice, justice” before they were stopped by Taliban forces, an AFP correspondent saw.
The Taliban also tried to prevent journalists from covering the march, organized against the “mysterious murders of young people, particularly the country’s former soldiers”, according to social media invitations.
Taliban members briefly detained a group of reporters and confiscated equipment from some photographers, deleting images from their cameras before returning them.
The protest comes weeks after separate reports by the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said there were credible allegations of more than 100 extrajudicial killings by the Taliban since their takeover.
In a statement read aloud by protester Laila Basam, the demonstrators called on the Taliban “to stop its criminal machine”.
The statement said former soldiers and government employees of the old regime are “under direct threat”, violating a general amnesty announced by the Taliban in August.
The protesters also aired objections to the ratcheting restrictions women are facing under Taliban rule.