For Some Afghan Women, Evacuation Is a Matter of Life or Death 

“We are really in danger — it is dreadful here now, and they are searching for us,” the 22-year-old Afghan student says.     Esin, like other female students, especially those who also worked with Western embassies, missions and NGOs in the Afghan capital, Kabul, as she did, is desperate to get out of Afghanistan. 

Some of her fellow students want to flee because they fear that they won’t be able to continue their academic studies under Taliban rule. Others calculate they will be targeted by wrathful militants. For Esin, evacuation looks highly likely to be a matter of life or death. But as she explains her plight, she knows her chances of escaping the Taliban are now diminishing by the minute. Her evacuation application has gone nowhere. And this knowledge overshadows her conversation with VOA as she expresses bewilderment about why she and others like her are being left behind.  Esin is in hiding now, along with her mother and two sisters. She has much to fear, and not only because she is a student and worked as a volunteer for the U.S. government.