This family was torn apart in Kabul. One year later, they’re still not back together

“I didn’t know how to go to the airport again,” Masi said. “It wasn’t easy for me.”When he and his father, Ahmad Wali Stanekzai, arrived at Kabul International Airport in April, they were flooded with bad memories of eight months before, when the whole family had joined the crowds in a desperate attempt to leave Afghanistan after the capital fell to the Taliban.Then there was the explosion — an ISIS-K suicide attack. The family was separated in the chaos. His mother was killed; he and his father were separated from his younger two siblings, who were injured. “Like overnight I become a single mom without knowing, like, how to enroll the kids into schools. It all was like a new experience for me,” Ferishta added. Mina, who is in third grade, told CNN she likes school. Her favorite subject is physical education. She enjoys “jumping and running,” and the doctor told her that her leg — which was injured in the attack in Kabul — is okay, but sometimes it hurts, she said. The family members speak every day. Mina tells her older brother and father that she loves them. Masi gets to hear about their school. He said it makes him happy to see them in their school uniforms.”I hope I also can wear a school uniform soon,” Masi told CNN.Ferishta said she wants to see the US government work faster to process cases, and that she and her family have not gotten clear answers about why her brother and nephew have not yet been able to come to the United States. She and retired Air Force Lt. Gen. John Bradley, who runs the Lamia Afghan Foundation and has been working with the family, both told CNN that Ahmad Wali and Masi have filled out forms and had interviews and medical exams.”They’ve just been left alone and never given much information,” Bradley said. “The family needs to be back together. None of us would think that it’s appropriate to keep people apart for a year, from parents when they’re young children,” Bradley said.