Relying on Canada...

"In two months I won't be able to fly because of liability issues with airlines. This whole situation is a nightmare, it feels like we're not living real life."

"How can a government of the free world look down and leave me and my husband to live one more day like this?"

"Every day it feels like I don't think I can do this another day, but we push on."

"People [in Pakistan] are suspicious of me because of my husband's ethnicity, especially the men, who know I'm pregnant and that my husband is far away. They say disgusting words to me."

"Women pretend to be my friend just to get personal information, like that my husband fought Taliban. Here, a lot of people support Taliban."

"I don't go outside anymore. I hide all day. I know some Afghans on special measures had everything paid for, but after all this we want only a stamp."

"I know if my husband comes back to Pakistan, he will end up in jail or dead. I just want my baby to have a dad."

Former Afghan interpreter (name withheld)

A former Canadian Armed Forces interpreter, unnamed in concern for her safety, in an undated photo. She is six months pregnant and stranded in Islamabad, in her agonizing journey through Canadian bureaucracy.  Submitted photo

Canada committed to bringing all its former Afghan assistants, office workers, locally engaged diplomatic staff, language interpreters with the Canadian military, to safety in Canada when the Taliban returned to power to transform Afghanistan once again from a nascent democratic model to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan under its fundamentalist aegis. The Taliban are known to hunt down Afghans who worked for the former Afghan government, members of the Afghan military, and above all, those they consider traitors; Afghans who worked for foreign countries stationed with a NATO/U.S.-led contingent in the country.

Some Afghans numbering in the thousands were fortunate enough to have been flown to Canada in a universal rescue undertaken by all western nations as they decamped from the country on the cusp of the Taliban's conquest. Others were far less fortunate, following orders of operation issued to them from Canada's Immigration and Refugee ministry, but which were fairly useless, leaving these people behind in fear of their lives at the hands of the Taliban. Paperwork is the fundamental stumbling block.

This woman interpreter married to a Canadian soldier is awaiting but one stamp on her passport to enable her to be brought to safety.She had followed Canadian instructions to leave Afghanistan for Pakistan on a visa, but her Pakistani visa was running out and she is in a helpless, vulnerable position. Pakistan views former helpers of foreign countries only marginally less favourably than the Taliban whom, after all, the Pakistani military and Inter-Agency intelligence group fostered, armed and protected.

The Pakistani government would not hesitate to return a former Afghan interpreter to Canadian forces to her country of origin. Where the Taliban would be prepared to take her into custody and her fate, following that, would be anyone's guess. Her own guess is none too hopeful. This woman's husband desperately urges and awaits action on the part of the bureaucrats of Canada's Immigratation, Refugees and Citizenship ministry. Action that has not been forthcoming, and whose lack of movement places this pregnant woman in danger for her life.

She has already been accepted into a special immigration program which grants Canadian Armed Forces interpreters the right to come to Canada as landed immigrants and eventually to achieve citizenship; she would be joining her Canadian husband in Canada. Instead, she languishes in fear and suspense awaiting rescue from Pakistan. She is fearful of going out in public. Simple excursions such as shopping or a medical visit place her in danger.

She and her husband barely managed to secure a rented place to stay from a reluctant landlord who demanded a steep fee for the privilege. In the interim her visa to remain in Pakistan expired and the potential of deportation looms. The lapsed visa makes is more difficult for her to find new lodgings. All the promises for swift action from the government of Canada have come to nothing.

Half a year after they returned to power in Afghanistan, Taliban arrests of Westerners are growing in frequency. Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images