Kathryn Chovanes launched her campaign to evacuate Afghan allies from their now Taliban-controlled country in an unlikely place: Twitter.
After listening to an NPR interview with an Afghan interpreter who worried he might be abandoned following the U.S. withdrawal, she cried for two days.
And then his thought nagged her into action. The U.S. had promised to help Afghan allies.
She thought: Can’t we do something?
“I don’t know if I can do anything, but I can let people know they’re not alone and that there are people who care,” said Chovanes, 32, of Lafayette.
Chovanes added, “There isn’t always something that you can do, but I have to try.”
Fast forward 18 months.
Chovanes and her team at EVAC have already helped to protect and feed more than 350 Afghans. To date, EVAC has evacuated 115 Afghans, 58 of whom have resettled in the U.S.
She also hopes to raise about $372,000 to evacuate and support eight more families who are looking to resettle in Brazil.
It’s been an incredible journey for a small business owner who a year and a half ago couldn’t identify Afghanistan on the map.
“I knew nothing about that part of the world,” Chovanes said. “But I know people and I’m a human and they’re a human and I could easily have been in their position.”
After she dried her tears, Chovanes took to Google and searched “Afghanistan,” “in hiding” and “at risk.”
Her searches lead Chovanes to Twitter where she met Abdul Rasheed Rasoul, 37.
Rasoul’s tweet has since been deleted, but it said, in effect, “My family is in danger. Can anyone help?”
‘I was scared of the Taliban’
For five years, Rasoul worked as an environmental compliance specialist on a watershed and irrigation management project with the United States Agency for International Development in Kabul.
Afghan nationals who provided “faithful and valuable service” and were employed by or on behalf of the U.S. government for at least a year can apply for a “Special Immigration Visa.”
Identifying the number left behind is challenging.
The U.S. State Department reports only the number of special immigrant visa applicants, which doesn’t include family members. The Association of Wartime Allies estimates — using State Department data — that about 81,000 Afghans had applied for a special immigrant visa by Aug. 15, 2021, the day Kabul fell to the Taliban.
Rasoul’s application had already progressed through the interview process and was awaiting final approval when the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan.
Chovanes worked the phones and her contacts, to put the names of Rasoul, along with his wife and daughters, on a flight manifest.
All Rasoul could do was wait.
“I was scared of the Taliban,” he said. “Most of the time, we stayed inside.”
In the aftermath, thousands of Afghans fearful of retribution at the hands of the Taliban rushed to the airport in Kabul hoping to escape.
The days that followed were filled with Afghans trying and failing — again and again — to evacuate.
And then a text came from Chovanes.
Her team had managed to secure a spot for him and his family on a flight out of Afghanistan.
“Without money, it is impossible to immigrate to another country,” Rasoul said.
Without money — and help.
He rushed to airport with his wife and four young daughters.
Chonvanes waited, eleven time zones away for news that they were airborne. Instead, her phone buzzed with frantic messages. “Where is Rasheed?”
‘Faded from the headlines’
Chovanes did not intend to form a nonprofit.
Truth be told, Chovanes thought she’d write a couple of letters of support or fill out some paperwork with the U.S. State Department. But she quickly learned that letters alone offered little help. And there were so many who needed help.
“This issue hasn’t gone away,” Chovanes said. “It’s only faded from the headlines.”
Chovanes added, “These people didn’t have anyone helping them.”
So, she started a nonprofit because no one else she knew doing this work could take on the work.
Her team of roughly 12 — all volunteers, including herself — is comprised of U. S.-based Americans and on-the-ground Afghans.
Their mission is to protect, evacuate and resettle at-risk Afghans who stood against the Taliban.
Not everyone, though, qualifies for a special immigrant visa.
The reasons vary.
One of the families Chovanes is attempting to evacuate doesn’t qualify because the multiple stints of service for the U.S. government were for less than a year each time. Others are journalists or women’s rights advocates, who also do not qualify.
With interviews scheduled at the Brazilian embassy in Pakistan next month, time is running out.
Chovanes needs to show that the Afghan families she’s helping have passage to Brazil and six months support.
She worries she might fall short of the money EVAC needs and is loathe to think of the tough conversations ahead if she doesn't.
“There’s a lot we’re not in control of,” Chovanes said. “I have to remind myself why we started doing this.”
‘We will kill you’
As Rasoul and his family made their way to the rally point, they encountered a large crowd. To control the unfolding chaos, members of the Taliban unleashed tear gas onto the crowd, spraying his girls.
He stopped for water to rinse his daughters’ eyes and nearly missed the bus to the Kabul airport.
Chovanes released a sigh of relief. But her comfort would be short lived.
Rasoul and his family rode together with 10 other families to the airport. At the Taliban checkpoint, a guard instructed the bus driver to turnaround.
“They did not allow the bus to go inside,” Rasoul said.
The group spent all night in the bus near the airport as the children slept on the floor. They tried again in the middle of the night, but were met with the same threat.
“If you do not go back, we will kill you,” the Taliban guard told them.
Believing this was his best chance to get out of the country, Rasoul remained undeterred. He and his family made five attempts over several days to enter the airport.
Chovanes — who had received some intel about bomb threats — was beside herself. She sent Rasoul a flurry of texts, begging him to leave.
As she waited, a suicide bomber detonated a single explosive device into a horde of people crowding the gate, killing 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans.
In the minutes after the bombing and before hearing from Rasoul, Chovanes crumpled on the floor and cried.
‘We have nothing here’
Sahar hasn’t been outside in four months.
She lives in hiding in a small, two-bedroom home with her family in Afghanistan.
The Taliban “changed our bright lives to darkness in a single day,” Sahar, 23, said by encrypted text in Afghanistan.
The Denver Gazette is using only using Sahar’s first name to protect her identify.
Sahar’s family is from northeastern Afghanistan in the Panjshir province, which has mounted an armed resistance. The Taliban has responded by deploying thousands of fighters who have beaten and tortured civilians, carried out summary executions and forced disappearances, according to the Human Rights Watch.
“We have nothing here,” Sahar said. “Living is like (in) a jail.”
Before the Taliban took over, Sahar was an outspoken activist for women’s rights and a motivational speaker who worked in school finance. Now she lives in fear of Taliban reprisals.
As a civil rights activist, neither she nor her parents, who were TV journalists before the Taliban took over, qualify for special immigrant visas.
“If Sahar and her family aren’t rescued, Sahar and her sisters will likely be married off to Taliban soldiers or sold into sex slavery and her mother and father killed,” Chovanes said.
Their only pathway, Chovanes said, is Brazil.
Sahar’s family is among the eight households Chovanes is raising money to evacuate.
Denver Community Church recently raised nearly $90,000 for the effort.
"There's a good chance that this is their last hope," said Dave Neuhausel, pastor of mobilization for the Denver Community Church and director of Project Renew. “It's a travesty what's happened there and that these folks have been left behind.”
‘Not give up hope’
Rasoul texted Chovanes a photo of his family hunkered down in a closet.
After five days outside the Kabul airport trying to get in, Rasoul and his family returned to hiding.
Like many Afghans, they were not successful on their first attempt.
Or their second.
It would take 14 months — seven in neighboring Pakistan — and three tries before Chovanes was able to get Rasoul and his family out.
The extended time in hiding away from friends and loved ones took a toll on his family. One of Rasoul’s older daughters, he said, struggled with depression.
He almost left Pakistan discouraged.
“What did you promise me from the beginning?” Chovanes said she would ask Rasoul, when he spirits were down.
“Not to give up hope,” Rasoul would respond.
In October, after seven months in hiding and another seven in Pakistan helping EVAC get others out, Chovanes greeted Rasoul and his family at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina.
Two months later, Rasoul received a Permanent Resident Card, colloquially known as a “green card” because of its color in the 50s and 6os. In five years, he can apply for U.S. citizenship.
With the help of the Carolina Refugee Resettlement Agency, Rasoul and his family were able to navigate, relatively pain free, their first months in the U.S. And, he started a new job working customer service for a car dealership. While not in his line of work, Rasoul has hopes one day to return to the environmental field.
“This is by chance,” Rasoul said of meeting Chovanes. “But I am not sure about that.”
