Sandesh Gonsalves, who leads the Jesuit Refugee Service team in Afghanistan, reports that Afghans are struggling in the wake of a “massive” earthquake that struck on Oct. 7. According to U.N. sources, the humanitarian aid system in Afghanistan is already desperately overstretched and underfunded, with over 29 million Afghans in need of assistance.
The New Taliban is about the same as the Old Taliban, but punishing the regime indiscriminately could push Afghanistan toward economic collapse and lead to another refugee crisis.
Though the families of former interpreters for the U.S. military are being targeted by the Taliban, there is still no established pathway for bringing them to the United States on a permanent basis.
There are no words to describe the difference between reading about the Taliban’s merciless destruction of Afghan citizens and hearing the same stories spoken from someone who has suffered at their hands.