Four young children hiding in a Kabul apartment have landed in the US and will soon reunite with their mother

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“My kids are safe now,” Suneeta told CNN Saturday morning as her kids traveled to the U.S. “I can’t express my happiness or my emotions.”

Suneeta, who did not want her full name or the names of her children to be released for security reasons, says she was especially concerned about her safety because of her husband’s work with U.S. troops before her disappearance. about eight years ago. He says he has tried to bring his children to the U.S. since he moved in 2018. But when Taliban fighters recaptured Kabul and claimed control of Afghanistan, his mission became more urgent than ever.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

With the help of Sara Lowry, a lawyer for the U.S. Refugee and Immigrant Committee, Suneeta began asking for help from U.S. government leaders and other organizations earlier this month to get the children (all under 18 years, the youngest are only 7 years old) out.

The days that have passed have been sleepless for the duo, according to Lowry, as they navigated the path to child safety: a long and complicated effort of cuts involving volunteers on the ground, strangers who offered their help, nonprofits , U.S. government agencies and new hurdles. which arose whenever his efforts seemed about to end.

“Emotionally, physically, mentally, in every way possible, it’s been exhausting,” Lowry told CNN on Friday, after receiving news that morning that the children had boarded a plane outside Afghanistan safely. “There have been ups and downs and there have been moments of hope and moments of despair.”

“We kept telling each other it wasn’t over,” he said.

A patchwork effort

The children’s story offers an insight into the massive mosaic of government and private efforts to get people out of the chaos unfolding in Kabul as President Joe Biden’s August 31 withdrawal deadline approaches.
Approximately 6,800 people were evacuated from Kabul during a 24-hour stretch from Friday to Saturday, according to a White House official.

These evacuations were carried out by U.S. military flights and coalition flights. Since Aug. 14, the U.S. has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of more than 114,000 people, according to the White House official.

CNN reported that Suneeta’s children were trapped in Afghanistan on August 18.

While their mother worked to protect them, the four children faced persistent dangers with each move: while they were in their apartment, Lowry says the children cared that someone had seen them in the news and found where they were hiding. . They tried to get to the airport once, but returned home for fear of being trampled in the middle of the massive masses who were scrambling through the airport gates desperately to flee the country.

“The trips from the airport to his residence were terrifying because we don’t know what the streets are like. We don’t know who they’ll meet or when,” Lowry said.

His return trip to Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport would soon arrive with the help of Alex Plitsas, a 36-year-old U.S. Army veteran who previously served in Iraq and an intelligence officer. Civil defense agency in Afghanistan and now working feverishly to evacuate people from the chaos, all from their home in Fairfield, Connecticut. He belongs to a network of volunteers (veterans and civilians) from across the United States working on a “digital Dunkirk” effort. Plitsas contacted the family with the help of a CNN anchor.

“It was very personal to me,” Plitsas told CNN. “I have 7-year-old twin girls. I did my mission to make sure they came home.”

Name of the baby born on the evacuation flight from Afghanistan "To arrive" after the plane call signal

Plitsas was able to locate the children and worked with volunteers in Afghanistan to move them to a safe place and from there to the airport, where they faced a new challenge of getting them inside.

The children waited at the airport gates for more than 30 hours, according to Lowry. They were put on hold after the deadly attack near another gate on Thursday, which killed more than 170 people and injured at least 200.

“You just have to make these really scary decisions, go ahead, leave because there could very well be another attack on the door and risk your chance to leave the country or you will be left without guarantees that you can enter the airport,” he said. dir Lowry.

But the effort to get children into the airport and out of the country took off: Lowry worked in the offices of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

Biden attends dignified transfer to Dover Air Force base for dead in Afghanistan

And soon, Rabbi Moshe Margaretten, president of the Tzedek Association, a non-profit organization that has been working to evacuate high-risk people from Afghanistan, joined the effort. He worked with the White House and other government leaders to help gather the documentation needed to take the children to the airport.

“My parents, my grandparents, are Holocaust survivors,” Rabbi Margaretten told CNN. “I don’t want any human being to be able to suffer the pain, to experience what our parents and grandparents went through, and we have to help them. That’s why I came in and did everything I could, and I’m still trying to do it.”

“We can help so many more,” the rabbi said.

A key player

The critic in the operation to remove the children from Afghanistan was an Afghan man named Mohammad Afzal Afzali, who was also trying to leave Afghanistan.

Afzali had been communicating with Scott Sadler, who lives in Washington, DC, and Brennan Heuser, in Colorado, who had worked with him during the deployments in Afghanistan and had now been collaborating and writing to northern officials. -Americans to help him evacuate the country.

Sadler and Heuser feared that Afzali’s previous work with American troops might endanger his life.

When the two learned of the efforts to evacuate Suneeta’s children and informed Afzali, she offered to take care of the four younger brothers and accompany them throughout the journey, paving the way for their safe return to the US.

“Their paths are intertwined for different reasons, but it has finally brought them to the U.S.,” Sadler told CNN in a written message.

After battling weeks of uncertainty and paralyzing fear since the Taliban’s capture, Suneeta’s children documented the final steps on their path to security through photographs. They shared snapshots with their mother as they entered the gates of Kabul airport, boarded a vehicle carrying them around the airport, soldiers checked documents, and finally a picture inside the plane. which would take them out of Afghanistan.

“Through all government agencies, all non-profit agencies and the various religious organizations, I mean everyone from all backgrounds came together to take these children to the airport,” Attorney Lowry said.

Now safely in the United States, the four young children look forward to embracing their mother again, after surviving the nightmare that continues to unfold at home.

CNN’s Jason Hoffman and Jake Tapper contributed to this report.

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