Two Afghans who trekked in France have lessons for evacuees

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PARIS (AP) – One slept in the streets of Paris, the other in a huge makeshift migrant camp in northern France.

Nassrullah Youssoufi and Abdul Wali were among more than one million refugees and migrants who arrived in Europe in 2015. The two Afghans do not know each other, but they share a terrifying past: escaping their homeland on foot, by bus, train or ferry and landing in a new country where they had no rights, not even rights. to stay.

Years later, the men are living legally in France, one working as an interpreter in the asylum court in the capital and the other in a restaurant in the northeast of the country. They are rich in hard-earned experience that offers a roadmap for arriving Afghans, like the thousands evacuated. in the United States, Europe and elsewhere after the Taliban regained control of Kabul last month.

Youssoufi and Wali’s advice: Accept the differences, love your new life and learn the local language.

For the 124,000 people flown out of Afghanistan last month in the US-led job function email database evacuation, the hardest part of their trip may well have been going through checkpoints, gunfire. and the crowds desperate to reach Kabul airport.

But far more Afghans found their own way out before the Taliban took power, and more are expected to flee. In the coming months. People from the Middle East, Africa and South Asia who knocked on Europe’s door six years ago have been sneaking around for months and sometimes years, often paying smugglers to get them through borders.

Youssoufi, 32, and Wali, 31, seem to tap into the inner resources that have helped them survive.

BECOME ‘NORMAL’