200 Afghans, mostly women escape Afghanistan with help of Canadian charity
Dozens of feminine Afghan college students have escaped the Taliban with the assistance of a Toronto-based charity and are heading to Saskatoon after a daring land journey lasting weeks.
Almost 100 women have managed to flee to Pakistan with their households after failing to get out of Kabul earlier than the airport was closed. Various Afghan feminine dancers had been additionally a part of the group.
They may head to Saskatoon inside the subsequent three weeks, Canada’s immigration minister confirmed on Sunday.
The group of about 200 Afghans spent weeks looking for a secure path to evade the Taliban, which just lately reclaimed political management of the nation and opposes the training of girls.
On Friday, the Taliban decreed that male high-school college students ought to return to the classroom, however not women.
Prince’s Belief Canada, which is a charity arrange by Prince Charles that helps youth and veterans packages and was concerned in co-ordinating the escape, mentioned it was relieved the group had lastly made it to security.
“They’re a extremely inspiring neighborhood and now they’ve a possibility to develop and proceed their training in Canada,” mentioned charity chairman Mark Fell.
With assist from the youth charity, the women tried to flee by air after the Taliban seized management of the nation in a lightning offensive final month. However situations proved too perilous to permit the women and their relations to succeed in the Kabul airport.
They then tried to make it to a different Afghan airport and thought of fleeing over the border with Uzbekistan earlier than finally escaping to Pakistan by way of a route which can’t be disclosed for safety causes.
The federal authorities confirmed on Sunday that it plans to resettle the feminine college students and their households in Saskatoon. They’re anticipated to journey there inside two or three weeks, and can quarantine after their arrival in Canada in accordance with federal measures to restrict the unfold of COVID-19.
Round 35 Afghans have already arrived within the Saskatchewan metropolis, which is residence to a small neighborhood of refugees from that nation.
Fell mentioned the Prince’s Belief wholeheartedly helps the selection of metropolis the group will quickly name residence.
“The Canadian authorities chosen Saskatoon,” he mentioned. “It’s a implausible place for them to settle.”
One other smaller contingent of feminine college students, who managed to flee with the primary group, have travelled to Mexico, a spokesman for the immigration minister mentioned.
The Canadian Press has agreed to not share particulars of the place the women are from or the place they had been being educated for safety causes.
Federal Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino mentioned Canada will “exhaust all of the choices to assist Afghan refugees get to security in our nation.”
“Providing refuge to ladies, women and persecuted minorities is on the coronary heart of Canada’s humanitarian response to the disaster in Afghanistan,’” Mendicino instructed The Canadian Press.
“Over 200 women and their households will quickly start new lives in Saskatchewan, which is additional proof of that dedication and we’re not stopping there.”
On Aug. 13, the federal authorities introduced it might resettle 20,000 Afghans who had fled their nation, and arrange a particular program for particularly weak Afghans, together with ladies leaders, human rights activists, journalists, persecuted minorities and members of the LGBT neighborhood, in addition to the relations of former interpreters who’ve beforehand fled to Canada.
There have been additionally 3,700 Canadians, Afghan refugees together with former interpreters and different nation’s nationals who had been airlifted by Canada out of Afghanistan earlier than American troops accomplished a frenzied withdrawal from the nation on the finish of August.
Since seizing management of the nation, the Taliban has focused feminine college students and their lecturers. A Might assault on a women’ faculty in Kabul, which occurred earlier than the Taliban had been formally again in energy, killed greater than 85 individuals, lots of whom had been attending courses.
Organizations serving to refugees settle in Saskatoon supply language courses, as effectively help discovering lodging and employment.
Additionally they run packages the place native households can donate furnishings, garments and kids’s toys, whereas native faculties supply assist to assist refugee college students adapt.
Ifti Khan, a Saskatoon-based driving teacher who’s initially from Pakistan and teaches refugees to drive, mentioned the town is a “welcoming place” for refugees.
“This can be a place the place you’ll be able to stay your life freely,” he mentioned. “There’s numerous alternative right here, to develop up and get an training and we now have loads of area.”
© 2021 The Canadian Press
https://globalnews.ca/information/8204277/200-afghans-mostly-women-escape-afghanistan-help-canadian-charity/ | 200 Afghans, principally ladies escape Afghanistan with assist of Canadian charity
