Several Modestans stranded in Afghanistan can’t get out, fear for their lives
The worst part is not knowing when armed Taliban might arrive at the doorstep of the place they’re hiding in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Reached by telephone Monday morning, Sam — not his real name — assumes he would be executed on the spot, like others who cooperated with U.S. military in recent years. The Taliban on Sunday rushed in before he could flee and took control of the capitol in his native country, where he was visiting his arranged-marriage wife and relatives.
It’s bad enough, in the Taliban’s eyes, that Sam a few years ago worked a highly sensitive job assisting U.S. agents, before he resettled as a refugee in Modesto in 2014. That he became a United States citizen a couple of years ago, and now carries a U.S. passport, would make things worse should he be found out.
“What worries me most is you don’t know when they’ll start searching house by house,” he told me in a tense 41-minute interview. “That probably will start in a matter of days, or hours. Everyone has seen what they’ve done in other cities, and they will in Kabul as well.”
Sam referred to rumors of atrocities such as public amputations, stonings and executions at the hands of the Taliban, whose previous extreme Islamic regime 20 years ago in Afghanistan also erased rights of girls and women.
“They kill whoever they find suspicious,” said Sam, a Bay Area resident after his time in Modesto.
His father was a higher-up in now-collapsed Afghan security. Everyone in the neighborhood knows of the family’s ties to America, that he and two brothers resettled in Modesto. It’s only a matter of time before someone tells the Taliban — if they don’t know already, Sam said.
Modestans stranded in Kabul
Four Modesto residents — a brother’s wife and their three children — were visiting Kabul and now are in hiding with Sam and his wife as well, he said. Things would not go well for them, either, if they are discovered, Sam said.
“Now the Taliban is everywhere in Kabul city,” he said. “They’re everywhere, in every intersection, in cars and vehicles used by (Americans and previous) military that they’ve taken over. They’re everywhere.”
A few days ago, alarmed that the Taliban had easily retaken other sections of Afghanistan, Sam paid nearly $2,000 to move his return flight to San Francisco up to Aug. 15. Shortly before departure, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled, Taliban fighters swarmed into Kabul and all flights were canceled.
News agencies shows footage of dozens of desperate Afghanis clinging to the outside of U.S. Air Force aircraft taxiing for takeoff.
Sam cautiously approached the Kabul airport Monday morning, he said, but saw Taliban fighters at the front gate, and thousands of civilians between them and a rumored safe zone that apparently still is held by the U.S. military, he said. It’s about the same distance as from Sylvan and McHenry avenues to downtown Modesto, Sam said.
“Thousands of people are running here and there. The Taliban is shooting from that side, and I think Americans are also shooting,” he said. “Everywhere I see, it’s chaos.”
He fears being stopped and searched at checkpoints, which could have biometric readers that could identify him by fingerprints.
Food, for now, is not hard to find. But everyone is too anxious to eat much, he said.
No time to abandon hope
The group’s best hope is receiving an invitation to evacuate from a safe zone. He knows that’s a long shot, but he hasn’t given up hope.
“This is not something I could make up, or read in a book. It’s real life. It’s happening,” Sam said.
“At the moment I’m talking to you, I don’t know if we get a knock and somebody wants to search the house. Everyone has the same feeling.”
Sarah Williams, community engagement manager for World Relief Modesto, has helped numerous Afghan families relocate here since 2012. Many are on edge, with relatives stranded like Sam and his group.
“It’s just devastating on all ends,” Williams said. “So many have gone from clients to friends, so it personalizes it for us, for sure. It’s heart-wrenching.”
Sam is reluctant to say he feels betrayed, because the Americans remain his family’s best hope.
“Tell the congressmen what’s going on. Let them know we are U.S. citizens and we can’t get out of here by ourselves,” he said. “We need their help.”
This story was originally published August 16, 2021 at 1:46 PM with the headline "Several Modestans stranded in Afghanistan can’t get out, fear for their lives."
