Family, colleagues of Afghan aid worker killed in U.S. strike one year ago not yet in U.S., lawyer says

More than a year after a mistaken U.S. strike killed Afghan aid worker Zemari Ahmadi and nine family members, just a few of his relatives have reached the U.S. despite U.S. offers of help.

More than a year after a mistaken U.S. drone strike killed Afghan aid worker Zemari Ahmadi and nine members of his family, just a handful of his relatives and colleagues have been relocated to the U.S., says an attorney for the nonprofit group that employed Ahmadi.

In the year since the tragic strike, the Defense Department and the Biden administration have vowed numerous times to compensate the family and help any family members wishing to leave Afghanistan and resettle in the U.S.

Brett Max Kaufman, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Nutrition & Education International of California, or NEI, which employed Ahmadi for 15 years, said 11 Afghans have made it to the U.S. out of a total of 144 family members and colleagues who have been trying to leave since the deadly strike on Aug. 29, 2021. Roughly 100 are relatives of Ahmadi’s, while the rest are other employees of NEI and their families, Kaufman said.

More than 100 of the aid workers and their families have been able to flee Afghanistan, Kaufman said, which two U.S. defense officials confirmed. About 40 are in Albania, and others have gone to Kosovo and Qatar, but they are all awaiting movement to the U.S. Thirty-two Afghans in the group have been unable to escape the country, the officials said.

A man bids farewell to Zemari Ahmadi in his casket at a mass funeral on Aug. 30, 2021, for members of a family who were killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan.Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images fileSome of the Afghans made it out on charter flights to transit countries, but those require passports and documentation, which limits who can fly. At least one group escaped by driving out through Pakistan, but a second group that tried the same route was turned back at the border, Kaufman said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/family-colleagues-afghan-aid-worker-killed-us-strike-one-year-ago-not-rcna46340


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