14-Year-Old Afghan Girl at Qatar Camp Appeals for U.S. Resettlement

Zahra, a 14-year-old Afghan girl, has released a video message appealing directly to first lady Melania Trump to help secure a future in the United States for herself, her family and around 1,100 other Afghans with ties to the NATO mission. The girl has lived at Camp As Sayliyah, a former US army base outside Doha, for the past 18 months.

She is the daughter of an Afghan army officer who served alongside US forces before the NATO-backed government collapsed in August 2021 and control of Afghanistan fell to the Taliban.

Zahra has been out of school for more than four years. The Afghans at the camp include interpreters and those who served with Special Operations Forces, as well as the immediate families of more than 150 active duty US military members. The Donald Trump administration halted a programme for them to be processed to the US, and many could be moved to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A US State Department spokesperson said the United States continues to work to identify options for voluntary resettlement of all Camp As-Sayliyah residents. The spokesperson added that the US remains in regular and direct communication with residents on resettlement efforts and will not disclose details regarding negotiations due to their sensitivity.

The spokesperson did not deny that relocating the refugees to a third country was an option under discussion.

In the video message, Zahra said: "Dear Mrs Melania Trump, I send this message with deep respect, honesty and hope, not only for myself but for my family, and other people who live in the same difficult situation. We do not ask for anything big, only a peaceful life, a chance to get a better education and a brighter future. That's all that we want.

She added: "This is not just a simple greeting. "I'm still a teenager but the pressure of this condition has made me feel older than my age, and I even have to take medication for my stress just to cope with the situation," she said.

Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran who heads the non-profit coalition #AfghanEvac, said these are wartime allies, US military family members, women and children. Many are already approved to come to the United States. The barrier is not law, he said, but policy.

"The reported plan to send these families to the DRC is not a solution. It is a refusal plan. This is not resettlement. It is an attempt to force refusal and justify return to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

You do not solve the world’s number one refugee crisis by dumping it into the world’s number two," VanDiver said. Zahra said in an earlier interview with CNN that the outbreak of the Iran war heightened the sense of fear in the camp. Missiles have flown over Camp As Sayliyah and some debris fell within the camp perimeter.

Iranian forces launched hundreds of missiles and drones at targets in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.