Afghan evacuees enjoy Albania but have eyes set on Canada

Hundreds of Afghans who were evacuated from their homeland are staying at a beach resort in Albania, enjoying the warm welcome and a normal daily life free from fear

GOLEM, Albania -- One Afghan teacher calls Albania a “paradise” while a former Afghan government official cannot get enough of “the freedom” that exists in the tiny Western Balkan country where they were evacuated to after the Taliban took over their homeland.

Others are more pensive. An Afghan woman who mentored orphan girls deplores the end of her project and the fate of her former students and women under their new Taliban rulers, while a businessman misses his company back home.

All of them are in limbo, waiting for a visa to the United States at the Kolaveri tourist resort on Golem Beach, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of the Albanian capital, Tirana. And all share a common dream: to go from the U.S. to Canada, where they hope to build a better future.

The resort shelters 571 Afghan evacuees plucked from their “fearsome and chaotic” country, as Fareidoon Hakimi, who has become the community’s leader, described Afghanistan.