On Friday, Kabul safe houses hosting 1,700 Afghan interpreters and their families are set to close because the money keeping them open will run out.
OTTAWA -- As a Canadian Forces combat engineer in Afghanistan, Corey Shelson's life revolved around a series of life-and-death calculations -- plotting the safe movement of his comrades around hidden roadside explosives and other threats.
Shelson says that's because the safe houses cost about $20,000 to $30,000 per day to operate. He says the tab has been ticking higher and higher because the federal Immigration Department has been too slow to approve travel documents for Afghan interpreters. In the last two months, the veterans network raised $2 million from 2,200 individual Canadian donors, he said. Shelson's firm contributed $50,000 worth of cash and in-kind services.
"I just felt like, I don't have much money, but I was praying that if a million people give 25 bucks to help, you know," Smith said in a telephone interview from southwestern Ontario. "Babies have been born inside the safe houses. We've had people recovering from getting beaten up by the Taliban or getting interrogated by the Taliban and getting tortured."Citing security considerations, Global Affairs Canada, which is taking the federal lead on safe houses, had little to say about the issue.
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