How 563 Afghans were brought to safety
Saturday, 9 July 2022
More than 500 Afghan evacuees have new hope for the future in New Zealand after months of uncertainty and hiding in their home country.
Manawatū woman Ellen Nelson, a former Defence Force engineering officer, spent 10 months working to get more than 40 of her former colleagues and their families – 563 people – out of Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August.
The people have now been resettled in New Zealand, but they were in danger from the Taliban because they had worked with the New Zealand Defence Force.
Nelson has been advocating to get them to New Zealand, working with Chris Parsons from Christchurch, a former SAS officer who was deputy chief of the New Zealand Army, and Lieutenant Colonel Martin Dransfield from Wellington.
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All 563 people gathered in Auckland last weekend and when Nelson walked into the event she was overwhelmed with emotion.
“Most of the people in the room were children,” she told Stuff. “They were going to go to school and grow up in New Zealand as Kiwi kids.
“When I saw them, especially little girls, I had this real sense of hope for what their future has in store for them in New Zealand. It is radically different to what was ahead of them in Afghanistan, where they would not have been allowed to be educated.
“Some of them were facing the prospect of being forced to marry Taliban soldiers. That was going to be their life.
“Now they are going to go to school, they are going to be educated if they want to, they will have a career if they want to, marry and have children with people if they want to. It was incredible.”
Nelson spent 30 to 40 hours a week working on the project.
She filed visa applications for the evacuees, “compiling documents from people who are on the other side of the world, don’t speak English, have no access to internet, were in hiding”.
“It has been hands down the most challenging, emotionally draining and difficult task I have every been involved with in my life.”
There were times when she didn’t know how it would end, but she couldn’t walk away from it.
“I would never have forgiven myself if one of those people died and I thought maybe I could have done more. I made a promise that I am going to do every single thing in my power and beyond to help these people.”
All of them had visas by September, but there was no clear path to get them out of Afghanistan.
But then Parsons and Dransfield got in touch with her and brought their connections. They then worked with the Government to get the people out.
Nelson said it was tough because it was in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was a Taliban-controlled country and there were no New Zealanders on the ground.
“The fact we have got every single one of the 563 out is a miracle.”
The evacuees gradually, and legally, left Afghanistan for another country, which Nelson couldn’t reveal for security reasons, before flying to New Zealand.
Donations were raised to cover travel, accommodation and food costs.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade acknowledged the work done by Nelson and her team to help the evacuees come in New Zealand.
The Government has helped 1700 people travel from Afghanistan to New Zealand since the Taliban takeover.
Immigration New Zealand’s general manager of border and visa operations Nicola Hogg said the Government set up a humanitarian residence category for arrivals from Afghanistan and more than 960 visas had been granted since July 4.