Afghan woman in limbo at Kabul airport after Taliban sweep
International | August 16, 2021
With hundreds of Afghans rushing the tarmac of Kabul’s international airport desperate to flee the return of the Taliban, a young Afghan woman stood in limbo between two worlds.
In one world, Massouma Tajik would board a flight to a country she did not know, destined to become a refugee. In another, she would stay in an Afghanistan under Taliban rule, forced to wipe out the last 20 years of all that she had built and achieved.
Sleepless, hungry and scared she has been waiting for hours at the airport for a flight she feared would never come with questions she could not answer.
“I am in the airport, waiting to get a flight but I don’t know to where,” she said, speaking to The Associated Press over the phone. “I am here, confused, hungry and hopeless. I don’t know what is coming my way. Where will I go? How will I spend my days? Who will support my family?”
Tajik, a 22-year old data analyst working for a U.S. contractor helping Afghan businesses, had gotten the call on Sunday afternoon, informing her she had just 10 minutes to leave for the airport. She had been put on an evacuation list heading to the United States or Mexico — she was told nothing more. She did not have a visa in her passport. … (Excerpts from the AP)