MONITORING (SW) – There are roughly 1,450 Afghan children who’ve been evacuated to the United States without their parents since August.
Months after they arrived, it’s unclear when, how — or even if — some of their families will be able to reunite. The large number, first reported by Reuters and updated in recent figures CNN obtained from the Office of Refugee Resettlement, reveals a devastating reality of the evacuations and their aftermath.
“It’s shocking…the idea that there are over 1,000 kids without their family right now, and that they’re potentially feeling alone and feeling scared,” says Dr. Sabrina Perrino, an Afghan American pediatrician in California who is hoping to become a foster parent to help.
Many of the children tried to flee Afghanistan with their families but got separated in the chaos, advocates say. Some lost touch with their parents during the bombing at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport. And some of their parents didn’t survive the terror attack.
Officials say the vast majority of the 1,450 children who were brought to the United States without their parents were quickly released to live with sponsors — including other family members they fled with or relatives who were already living in the United States. Some were reunited with family via an expedited screening process the Biden administration created for the Afghan children.
But about 250 of the children remain in US government custody, according to statistics the Office of Refugee Resettlement recently provided to CNN. And most of those children, advocates say, have no family members to reunite with in the United States.
Families and advocates who spoke with CNN said the children, already traumatized by what they went through in Afghanistan, now are living in limbo and desperate for answers about what’s next.
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