A former Canadian Army Afghan interpreter who had fled the Taliban this summer but then found himself stranded in Ukraine with his family at the start of the Russian invasion, eventually managed to flee the combat zone and take refuge in Poland this week.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
Jawed Haqmal was one of a group of former interpreters who fled Afghanistan this summer because his work with the Canadian military put him in danger. When the Taliban had taken Kabul, he had had trouble getting to the airport, because of the roadblocks erected by armed men and the movements of crowds in the grip of panic.
Canadian special forces soldiers were at Kabul airport at the time, but their superiors refused to allow them to go into town to pick up the former interpreters. Thanks to the intervention of a journalist from Globe and Mail who had made it his mission to help former interpreters, Jawed Haqmal and his family were rescued by Ukrainian soldiers who took them to Kyiv, while they waited for them to continue on their way to Canada.
But Canadian bureaucracy took more than six months to process his case, so Jawad Haqmal found himself stuck with his pregnant wife and a dozen other family members in the Ukrainian capital when the Russian attack began. .
“I fled a war, and now I’m caught up in a new war,” he said in a telephone interview with The Press live from Ukraine last Friday.
It’s the same situation as in Afghanistan, with explosions, sirens, blocked roads, people crying and running in the streets.
Jawed Haqmal
On Wednesday, the former interpreter confirmed to The Press that he had managed to flee with his relatives to Poland. In interview with the Globe and Mail, he explained that he gave his wife’s and mother’s gold rings as a pledge to another family who lent him money to make the trip. He also claimed to have had to pay guards as he approached the border, but was then able to enter Poland without difficulty, where his family was accommodated in a reception center for refugees.
He also explained that his intention was now to seek asylum in Germany, since after six months of waiting, he no longer hopes that the Canadian authorities will allow him to come and settle in Canada. After wearing the Canadian uniform and risking his life alongside the soldiers of the Royal 22and Valcartier Regiment for years in Kandahar, he is disappointed to have believed in the promises of the Canadian government, which said it wanted to help its former collaborators flee the Taliban. His decision to leave his country was based on this promise, but it never materialized and his family’s future remains unclear.
“Unfortunately, I no longer have any confidence in this government which put me in the worst situation,” he dropped in a message sent to The Press.