A 25 year old woman from California has spoken out about living in Taliban-led Afghanistan, where many Americans remain unable to leave. The woman, who identified herself only as Nasria, recounted how she traveled to Kabul in June to visit family and marry her boyfriend.
"There's been days, you know, where I think to myself, 'Am I going to make it home? Am I going to end up living here? Am I going to end up dying here?" Nasria told Voice of America, refusing to share her last name for security reasons. She lamented that upon the final U.S. withdrawal on August 31, Taliban terrorists began "hunting Americans" who were left on the ground.
"Apparently, they're going door to door now trying to see if anyone has a blue passport," Nasria shared. She also shared how she and her husband, as newlywed couple fled to the Kabul airport when the Afghan government fell and the Taliban took over, but they failed to make it inside the airport.
"It was so hard to just get on a flight. There was a couple days where we had to sleep on streets. People were literally stepping over people. That's how bad it was," Nasria recalled. Breitbart reported that she then contacted the U.S. State Department, which officials told her to proceed to a designated area where she and her husband would be escorted onto an evacuation flight. However, the Taliban forbade them to go.
"Our troops were literally at the gate just waiting for us to continue walking and they had blocked us," the pregnant California woman said. Nasria added that Taliban fighters prevented her from going to the airport despite seeing her passport. She recounted how she started walking towards the airport and one of the Taliban forces shot right by her leg, ordering her to return or they would shoot her.
"That's how it was and I've never in my life have ever experienced anything like this," Nasria lamented. Her husband even asked the Taliban to let her escape on her own, but she refused to leave without him.
According to Fox News, Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California was sounding the alarm on how Nasria and other Americans who were stranded in Afghanistan are experiencing persecution and abuse. Rep. Issa said during an appearance on Fox News that Nasriia had been kicked in the stomach by Taliban fighters.
Rep. Issa insisted that "anyone who says there aren't people stranded is wrong." He added that the Taliban continues to use Americans and its allies as "hostage." He said that the U.S. State Department "cleared these flights and the Taliban will not let them leave the airport."
Up to 1,000 people, including Americans and Afghans who hold U.S. visas or visas to other countries remain stranded in Afghanistan, the New York Times reported. The U.S. State Department admitted on Sunday that they no longer have "personnel on the ground...air assets in the country"and that the U.S. "do not control the airspace - whether over Afghanistan or elsewhere in the region," making it more difficult to arrange a safe exit for those who remain.
