Does AiCN support new cases?

Unfortunately, we no longer support other cases, mainly due to a lack of resources, both ecnomical and/or human but also as time has gone by, and with the ongoing crisis in Ukraine as well as the global regugees crisis, the interest in helping afghans has literally faded away. Very few embassies provide interviews for afghans seeking aslyum and apply very strict criteria for them to pass. Many afghans who flee to neighbouring countries, other find themselves waiting for anything up to a year for a European embassy to provide them with an appointment.

Others who are hoping to be settled in the US, can wait up till two to three years before their case is even heard. Some afghans have had to reluctantly go back to Afghanistan as they simply cannot survive that long. In the case of one AiCN family, the family of three (female with her two children) returned to Afghanistan and within four days she was murdered. The situation is very precarious for afghans both stuck in Afghanistan and neihbouring countries. Afghan families do not enjoy legal status in the neighbouring countries which put them further at risk. Many rely on family hand outs and donations from strangers to survive. Many have passed through hospitals and especially the women have ended up in hopsital with malnutrition, mental health issues and other illnesses due to the extreme poverty they are currently living under.

Given these extreme circumstances, AiCN is currently concetrating its efforts on the women and their families who are curerntly in Pakistan and Iran and a further nine female headed families in Afghanistan. The process is long, and while AiCN can boast a reasonably high success rate, there are families (approximately 6 in Pakistan) who have been denied the right of aslyum by a european embassy and are stuck in pakistan while alternatives are found. To this end, at the moment AiCN cannot take on any new cases.