USA – “It’s like the United States doesn’t actually understand what I did for this country, it’s a betrayal,” Abdullah tells the BBC. He fled Afghanistan with his parents amid the US withdrawal in August 2021 and is now a paratrooper for the US military. He worries he can’t help his sister and her husband escape too, because of President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending a resettlement programme. The order cancels all flights and suspends applications for Afghan refugees, without any exemption for families of active servicemembers.

Trump argues the decision addresses “record levels of migration” that threaten “the availability of resources for Americans”. But Abdullah and several other Afghan refugees have told the BBC they feel the US has “turned its back” on them, despite years of working alongside American officials, troops and non-profit organisations in Afghanistan. We are not using their real names, as they worry doing so could jeopardise their cases or put their families at risk. As soon as Abdullah heard about the order, he called his sister in Afghanistan. “She was crying, she’s lost all hope,” he said. He believes his work has made her a target of the Taliban government which took power in 2021. (BBC)