Afghan family 'thankful' to settle in Halifax after escaping Kabul
CBC
Rohuddin Zia arrived safely in Nova Scotia with his family about a month ago after fleeing from Afghanistan, but the fear he feels for the Taliban regime is still with him.
"Sometimes in my sleep when I dream I'm in Afghanistan, I shake," he said.
Following his work as a security guard at the Canadian Embassy in Kabul and then an interpreter for the Canadian Armed Forces in Kandahar, Zia was convinced his life was in danger if he remained in his home country after the Taliban seized control.
"If they found out about us, if they [knew] about me or other interpreters that worked with Canadian or other coalition forces, they [would] cut [our] heads," Zia said.
Along with his mother, wife and four young children, the family left their home behind in Kabul and flew out of Afghanistan on Aug. 14, days before scenes of chaos erupted at the airport.
"I left Afghanistan by help of Canadian Armed Forces with their military airplane charter. We're thankful about this," he said. "If we stayed eight hours more, we wouldn't have any chance to leave Kabul."
After first landing in Kuwait followed by a stop in Germany, Zia and his family arrived in Halifax last month.
Intelligence regarding foreign interference sometimes didn't make it to the prime minister's desk in 2021 because Canada's spy agency and the prime minister's national security adviser didn't always see eye to eye on the nature of the threat, according to a recent report from one of Canada's intelligence watchdogs.