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More than two dozen Sacramento-area students remain in Afghanistan after the US evacuation ended earlier this week, according to the San Juan Unified School District.
“We can confirm that we currently have 29 students, from 19 families, in Afghanistan,” said Raj Rai, school district communications director, responding on behalf of Superintendent Kent Kern on Tuesday. “We are ready to support these students and families in any way we can.”
Earlier Tuesday, the total number of students in the San Juan Unified School District still in Afghanistan was estimated at 32, but the district has since learned that three students have been evacuated, he said.
The Sacramento area has one of the largest Afghan immigrant populations in the United States
The last U.S. flight from Kabul departed one minute before midnight local time on Monday (3:29 p.m. ET), closing a bloody and chaotic end to America’s longest war and opening an uncertain new chapter for Afghanistan.
Since July, the United States has helped airlift more than 120,000 people out of Afghanistan, including about 5,500 Americans. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that around 100 to 200 Americans were still in Afghanistan and had “some intention to leave,” many of whom have dual citizenship.
While tens of thousands of evacuees survived the U.S. military withdrawal, early figures suggest that only around 8,500 of those who left in recent months were Afghans, according to figures released by the Biden administration and defenders’ estimates.
It was not clear whether the students in the Sacramento area were US citizens.
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The Sacramento Bee reported how during a briefing at a local high school last week, students and parents asked about how to get loved ones out of Afghanistan. Humaira Hanif, 21, wiped away tears as she asked how to bring her mother to the United States, the newspaper reported.
Travis Horne, director of communications for Representative Ami Bera, D-Calif., Said his office was in close contact with the San Juan Unified School District and had sent information about students stranded in Afghanistan to the Defense Department and the state department.
“We are asking the DoD and the state for an update,” he said.
NBC’s KNSD station in San Diego reported on Tuesday that a San Diego-area family, including three students who attend schools in the Cajon Valley Union School District, were also unable to leave the country. It was not immediately clear how many other American school districts were running out of students because they could not get out of Afghanistan.
The US war in Afghanistan ended on Monday almost 20 years after the US invasion following the September 11 attacks, toppling the Taliban government.
After a heavy toll in human lives and a price tag of $ 2.3 trillion, the Taliban are back in power after sweeping the US-backed government in a lightning-fast offensive that took the Afghans and l ‘West by surprise.
The United States is hopeful that the Americans and Afghans can leave once the Kabul airport is operational again, but it is not yet clear how long that will take.
Caroline radnofsky and Sara mhaidli contributed.
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