American citizen trapped in Afghanistan to Chris Cuomo: 'How will they help me now?'

Stephen Proctor
·3 min read
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Chris Cuomo was joined Monday on Cuomo Prime Time by an American citizen who was unable to leave Afghanistan before the final military plane departed. Contacting the show by phone, the interpreter, identified only as Sara to protect her identity, was sheltering 37 women and children in her home, trying to get them safe passage out of the country, and wasn’t even aware the last U.S. plane was leaving.

“It’s heartbreaking to see that, with all this, what’s going on, no one heard us, that we are in danger and we need to be saved,” Sara said. “It's just heartbreaking. I don’t know — I just don't even know what to say to you. Whoever was trying to help me and support me, even they did not tell me that the flight is — this was the last flight. So I still had hope that we would leave.”

Sara is one of up to 200 Americans believed to be remaining in Afghanistan who would like to leave. She said she tried going to the Kabul airport but was unable to get in, despite being in repeated contact with the State Department. Now, Sara appears to have lost faith.

“I don’t know anymore what to believe anymore. I don’t believe in anybody anymore because they’ve been fooling me for [the] past ten days. Back and forth. Back and forth. Stories after stories,” Sara said. “I know I have a group of people who [are] supporting me and helping me, and they’re working very hard for me to leave this country. … And I don’t know what to believe anymore. I am completely speechless. I don’t know what to say, but I just can’t believe no one told me that this was the last flight.”

Now Sara is not only concerned for her own safety, but for those who took shelter in her house hoping to leave the country.

“Am I safe? Are these people safe?” Sara asked. “I don’t even think they’re safe because they’re in my house. Because now there are more targets than ever before, because they are living in my house, and I’m an American. I’m a former interpreter. I worked for 14 years. And what is next for us? We just smell the death.”

Sara said she went on countless missions with the U.S. military in many different provinces, but never had the feeling in her heart that she felt when she heard the last plane had left. The Biden administration has said they’d continue to work to get every American out of Afghanistan through diplomacy, but Sara does not have high hopes.

“They left us to whom? To those people who — they were always wanting to kill us?” Sara said. “And now I’m by myself here with 37 people? This is my fear. That if America could not help me when they were on the ground, how will they help me now when no one is here? That’s my question.”

Cuomo Prime Time airs weeknights at 9 p.m. on CNN.

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