A group of refugees from Afghanistan has gathered in front of the United States embassy in Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo, calling for their cases to be expedited after years of waiting.
At least a dozen Afghans including both adults and children gathered on Monday outside the embassy premises, saying they had applied for the US Refugee Admissions Program in 2019, but were yet to receive any updates until two months ago, when they had interviews with a US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agent.
Since then, their wait for answers has continued, they said.
“They said after one month they give us the result, after now they haven’t given the result,” claimed one refugee, Ahmadullah, who like the others gathered asked to only use his first name for fear of retribution against his family in Afghanistan.
“We have no word,” he told Al Jazeera. “We have nothing.”
Bahar, a spokesman for the group, told Al Jazeera by video chat from the protest “They make us a hostage since 2019 … Now we are sitting here in this rain. We will not leave until we get this answer.”
Those gathered said they had worked in support of either NATO forces or US and foreign companies and non-profits in Afghanistan, and as a result, faced Taliban retribution if they returned to their home country.
Bahar, a former IT manager at the Afghan central bank, told media that he had previously worked with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and his family had provided land and support to US-based NGO Morning Star in their home village of Jegdalek. He fled to Madagascar in 2018 after his mother was killed in a Taliban attack.
Another woman who sat in front of the embassy, Bibi Maria, said she fled Afghanistan that same year with her four children after the Taliban killed her husband, who she said was a supplier for US and NATO troops.
Some of those gathered carried signs with Afghan flags that said “please merci [sic] on us” and “we want results”.With few options for travel available, the fleeing Afghans said they had chosen Madagascar because they could get a visa on arrival.
As of April, there were 20 United Nations-registered Afghan refugees in the country, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). While the refugees receive some basic support through a local UNHCR-affiliated organisation, they are unable to work, and they say their children are unable to go to school and that access to healthcare remains severely limited.
