Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and all members of the Afghan committee. My name is Safiullah Mohammad Zahed. I worked as an interpreter for the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan, in Kandahar, from 2006 to May of 2012. I would like to thank you all for the opportunity to speak here about the situation in Afghanistan for our families.
When the unthinkable happened in Afghanistan, it was the worst nightmare for all of us. Everyone was anxious about their family members' lives. I personally had no idea what to do or what door to knock on for help. I could not stop thinking about what could happen to my family as I had already lost my best friend, my dad, in 2013 due to being employed by the Canadian Armed Forces. He was brutally shot in the heart. I was and still am scared that the same could happen to whatever family I have left. Since then I have been moving them around Afghanistan.
I have four brothers, and two of them went missing when the Taliban took over. One made it to Turkey. He was smuggled and almost died on the way. The other one is still missing, and we have no idea where he is. Their children and the rest of their families and my family are on the move from one house to another, from one city to another, from one province to another. It has been seven months, and we have moved to four or five provinces. It's been six or seven weeks since I have spoken to them. Because of the media and because of all of the contacts we cannot get in touch with them. That's not just my story. It's the same for most of the interpreters. Personally I know two people here, two of my best friends. One lost his sister, who was killed in school. I hadn't talked to the other one for a long time, but the other day I called him. As a friend, I asked him how he was doing, and he started crying. I said, “Why are you crying?” and he said, “I have lost 11 family members since the Taliban took over.” I said, “Why don't you come forward and talk to the government and email IRCC?” He said, “What's the benefit? You have been having meetings every week with IRCC. Have you gained anything? Seventy-five per cent of people's files have not been seen by IRCC members.”
After we talked to the government every Monday for three or four weeks, finally the government started a pathway for us. It opened last December. It's been five months since we submitted all of our applications. The big problem we have right now is that the initial application was 33 pages long—I have all of the form numbers—for every family member. I have four brothers and in total 13 to 15 members. For each one there are 33 pages of applications we handed to the members. Then we got more emails. We have been contacted by three different offices asking for similar information, the same kinds of forms.
Last week, most of our friends got emails from three different offices asking for 16 more forms. I don't know how or who we cry to. In one way we're running from the Taliban government and on the other hand we have our government which is making more obstacles, which is making it harder for us to fill in or complete our applications. If they cannot give us a G number or a UCI number in five months or complete our applications because we have so much more to come, how can they bring our families? This was supposed to be an emergency evacuation, but instead it's being treated as a family sponsorship program in which we have to pay for everything. We have to file hundreds of forms. I think they're just making excuses.
There will be a problem in a form where they're asking about my dad's history from 40 years ago and about what he was doing when the Russians where there. When the Russians were in my country, they killed two of my uncles and two of my aunts. They bombed them like animals—