Afghan Refugees Arrive In Connecticut As Resettlement Agency Calls For State Assistance

The Afghan refugees traveling for more than a day arrived with luggage, plastic wrapped packages and pans — the small amount of personal belongings they were able to gather before leaving their native country behind. (Camila Vallejo/Connecticut Public)

Late on Monday night, two cars filled with luggage and seven tired travelers pulled up in front of the New Haven headquarters of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, or IRIS.

Under the dim lights of a nearby gas station, the travelers stepped out of the cars in groups. First, a petite woman with two small boys. As the youngest boy embraced his mother, the other stood behind her checkered dress carrying a large laptop bag. Out of the second car emerged the woman’s husband and their two older children. All exhausted after more than 30 hours of travel from Kabul, Afghanistan, to Qatar to the U.S.

The family is among thousands of Afghan refugees fleeing Kabul amid the Taliban’s takeover. And they were accompanied to New Haven by a solo traveler from Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city.

Click here for the full story from Connecticut Public Radio.