{"id":48019,"date":"2022-08-31T14:00:20","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T05:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2022\/aug\/31\/year-helping-people-flee-the-taliban-afghanistan"},"modified":"2022-08-31T14:00:20","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T05:00:20","slug":"i-have-spent-a-year-helping-people-flee-the-taliban-failure-is-traumatic-success-bittersweet-ruchi-kumar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=48019","title":{"rendered":"I have spent a year helping people flee the Taliban: failure is traumatic, success bittersweet | Ruchi Kumar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We are still trying to find ways to get visas \u2013  writing letters, appealing to governments  \u2013 but the options are running out<\/p>\n<p>It was past midnight on 9 August 2021, and I was immersed in writing when my phone pinged: a message from a contact at the Indian embassy in Kabul. They said the Indian mission in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif was evacuating and offered me a seat on the flight.<\/p>\n<p>There were reports the city would collapse soon and fall to the Taliban. I had already left Mazar, but it was hard to imagine that this historic, metropolitan city could topple so easily. It was too well fortified, as I had witnessed during my recent reporting trip, with hundreds of Afghan forces patrolling its gates.<\/p>\n<p>Ruchi Kumar is a journalist formerly resident in Kabul<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2022\/aug\/31\/year-helping-people-flee-the-taliban-afghanistan\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are still trying to find ways to get visas \u2013  writing letters, appealing to governments  \u2013 but the options are running outIt was past midnight on 9 August 2021, and I was immersed in writing when my phone pinged: a message from a contact at the Indi&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1373,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,59,494,61,44,281,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-global-development","category-refugees","category-south-and-central-asia","category-taliban","category-women","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1373"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48020,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48019\/revisions\/48020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}