ISLAMABAD (AP) — Afghans who fled after the Taliban seized power appealed Wednesday to U.S. President Donald Trump to exempt them from an order suspending the relocation of refugees to the United States, some saying they risked their lives to support U.S. troops.
An estimated 15,000 Afghans are waiting in Pakistan to be approved for resettlement in the U.S. via an American government program. It was set up to help Afghans at risk under the Taliban because of their work with the U.S. government, media, aid agencies and rights groups, after U.S. troops pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021, when the Taliban took power.
But in his first days in office, Trump's administration announced the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program would be suspended from Jan. 27 for at least three months. During that period, the White House said the secretary of homeland security in consultation with the secretary of state will submit a report to the president on whether the resumption of the program is in the U.S. interest.
Refugees who had been approved to travel to the United States before Jan. 27 have had their travel plans canceled by the Trump administration. Among those affected are the more than 1,600 Afghans cleared to resettle in the U.S. That number includes those who worked alongside American soldiers during the war as well as family members of active-duty U.S. military personnel.
There was no immediate comment from Pakistan, where authorities have urged the international community to decide the fate of 1.45 million Afghan refugees, saying they cannot stay indefinitely.
“Many of us risked our lives to support the U.S. mission as interpreters, contractors, human rights defenders, and allies,” an advocacy group called Afghan USRAP Refugees — named after the U.S. refugee program — said in an open letter to Trump, members of Congress and human rights defenders.
“The Taliban regard us as traitors, and returning to Afghanistan would expose us to arrest, torture, or death,” the group said. “In Pakistan, the situation is increasingly untenable. Arbitrary arrests, deportations, and insecurity compound our distress.”
Hadisa Bibi, a former student in Kabul who fled to neighboring Pakistan last month, said she read in newspapers that Trump suspended the refugee program.
“Prior to restrictions on women’s education in Afghanistan, I was a university student,” she said. “Given the risks I face as a women’s rights advocate, I was hoping for a swift resettlement to the United States. This would not only allow me to continue my higher education but also offer a safer and brighter future.”
She said she witnessed several Afghans arrested by Pakistani police, which left her in fear, "confined to my room like a prisoner.”
Mahnoosh Monir said she was a medical student in Afghanistan when her education was “cruelly suspended by the Taliban." Before fleeing to Pakistan, she worked as a teacher at a language center but it also was shut by the Taliban.
“Afghanistan is no longer a place for any girl or woman to survive," she said, adding she was disappointed by Trump's move.
“I didn’t expect this suspension to happen. A long span of waiting makes us think of very disappointing probabilities like being sent back to Afghanistan or waiting for a long time in Pakistan as a refugee at risk, which are like nightmares to all case holders," she said.
The Taliban have deprived 1.4 million Afghan girls of schooling through bans, according to the United Nations. Afghanistan is the only country in the world that bans female secondary and higher education.
Both Bibi and Monir applied for relocation and are still waiting. Over time, the visa process for Afghans who demonstrate they are at risk of persecution has become protracted.
Another Afghan woman, Farzana Umeed, and a man, Sarfraz Ahmed, said in an interview on the outskirts of Islamabad they were traumatized by the suspension of the program.
“I virtually wept last night when we heard this news,” Umeed said. She said it was difficult for her to live in Pakistan, and she could not travel to America either. “Returning to my home country also means taking a huge risk. What should I do? she asked, and urged Trump to reverse his decision.
Those in exile in Pakistan include Afghan journalists who were forced to escape Taliban rule to save their lives, and now face “extreme anxiety under the recurring threat of arbitrary arrest, police harassment and deportation to Afghanistan,” Reporters Without Borders said Wednesday.
The media watchdog urged Pakistan to ensure the protection of these journalists, who say their visa is extended only for a month for a $100 fee.
According to the Afghan USRAP Refugees group, flights to the U.S. for many Afghans had been scheduled for January, February and March after they were interviewed by the International Organization for Migration and U.S. Embassy officials.
“We seek the reversal of the ban on the refugee program on humanitarian grounds,” said Ahmad Shah, a member of the group, who was hoping to leave Pakistan for the United States in March after undergoing all interviews and medical tests.
In addition to Pakistan, more than 3,200 Afghans are staying in Albania. A NATO member, Albania first agreed to house Afghans for one year before they moved for final settlement in the United States, then pledged to keep them longer if their visas were delayed.
An Afghan refugee man, who asked not to use his name and not to show his face fearing his identity could lead to his capture, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
An Afghan refugee woman, who asked not to use her name and not to show her face fearing her identity could lead to her capture, poses for photographer following her interview with The Associated Press, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A series of separate meetings between American, Russian and Ukrainian interlocutors entered their third day on Tuesday as U.S. negotiators shuttled back to discussions with their Ukrainian counterparts in the Saudi capital, a continuation of talks with Kyiv officials that began Sunday over a potential ceasefire in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, a Kremlin official said Tuesday that the talks between U.S. and Russian officials in Riyadh the previous day would likely lead to further contacts between Washington and Moscow, but that no concrete plans have yet been made.
The three days of meetings — which did not include direct Russian-Ukrainian negotiations — are part of an attempt to hammer out details on a partial pause in the 3-year-old war in Ukraine. It has been a struggle to reach even a limited, 30-day ceasefire — which Moscow and Kyiv agreed to in principle last week -- with both sides continuing to attack each other with drones and missiles.
Russia and Ukraine have also taken differing interpretations of what a possible partial ceasefire would look like, and disagreed over what kinds of targets would be included in a pause on strikes — even after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with the leaders of both countries to advance a deal.
Yet despite the numerous sticking points — the White House has said a partial ceasefire would include ending attacks on “energy and infrastructure,” while the Kremlin declared that the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure” — attempts to secure safe commercial shipping in the Black Sea appeared to garner support in principle from both parties, though no specific agreements have been announced.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday told the country’s state-run Channel One TV station that the Russian and U.S. delegations in Riyadh had discussed “primarily issues of safe shipping in the Black Sea” — a major shipping corridor on which both Russia and Ukraine have ports and coastline.
Lavrov also said that Moscow is up for resuming — “in some form, acceptable to everyone” — a 2022 deal that allowed Ukraine to ship grain through the Black Sea to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where hunger was a growing threat and high food prices had pushed more people into poverty.
The landmark Black Sea Grain initiative was brokered by the U.N. and Turkey in the summer of 2022; Moscow halted it in July 2023 until its demands to get Russian food and fertilizer to the world were met.
Serhii Leshchenko, advisor to the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, told the Associated Press on Tuesday that U.S-Ukrainian talks in Riyadh on Sunday had included “the security of shipping and infrastructure, including safety for the (Ukrainian) ports of Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Kherson.”
Leshchenko added that the Ukrainian delegation would brief Zelenskyy following renewed talks on Tuesday with the U.S. delegation, adding: “Ukraine is ready to support initiatives that will make diplomacy a means of pressure to compel Russia to end the war.”
On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the the outcome of the U.S-Russia talks in Riyadh “has been reported in the capitals” and was currently being “analyzed” by Moscow and Washington, but that the Kremlin has no plans to release further details of what was discussed to the public.
“We’re talking about technical negotiations, negotiations with immersion in details," Peskov said, adding that while there are currently no plans for Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to speak, such a conversation could be quickly organized if the need arises.
“There is an understanding that the contacts will continue, but there is nothing concrete at the moment,” Peskov said. He added that that there are no plans to hold a three-way meeting between Russia, the U.S. and Ukraine.
Senior Russian lawmaker Grigory Karasin, who took part in the Russia-U.S. talks in Riyadh on Monday, told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti that the conversation was “very interesting, difficult, but quite constructive.”
“We were at it all day from morning until late at night,” Karasin was quoted by the agency as saying on Tuesday.
Speaking about the war in Ukraine, Karasin said Moscow’s and Washington’s positions don’t always align, but that the two parties will continue to look for ways to cooperate, as there is now an understanding that cooperation is necessary to resolve the conflict. The lawmaker added that talks between expert groups from Russia and the U.S. could continue.
The number of people injured Monday in a Russian missile strike on the center of the Ukrainian city of Sumy rose to 101 people including 23 children, according to the Sumy regional administration.
The strike on Sumy, across the border from Russia’s Kursk region which was partially occupied by Ukraine since August, hit residential buildings and a school, which had to be evacuated due to the attack.
Meanwhile, Russian forces launched one ballistic missile and 139 long-range strike and decoy drones into Ukraine overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force. Those attacks affected seven regions of Ukraine.
Two people were injured after drone debris fell on a warehouse in the Poltava region, administration head Volodymyr Kohut wrote on Telegram Tuesday, while two people were injured outside the city of Zaporizhzhia, according to the head of the region.
One man suffered injuries after a Russian drone attack in Kherson, city administration head Roman Mrochko wrote on Telegram Tuesday.
Associated Press writer Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, a paramedic evacuates an elderly resident whose house was hit by Russian attack in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire following a Russian attack in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, a psychologist works with residents of houses which were hit by a Russian attack in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire following a Russian attack in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
