Exclusive: After daughter killed by Taliban, Canadian Forces employee escapes to Alberta

Nazifa was shot dead while her family was waiting to be evacuated to Canada.

Outside his apartment building in Edmonton, Bashir Ahmadi showed off his newborn and counted his blessings. Four months after arriving in Canada through the government’s Afghan resettlement program, he has a lot to be thankful for.

He has a job as a painting contractor, his eldest boy has started school and, last month, his wife gave birth to a son. The Taliban, who had threatened Ahmadi because he worked for the Canadian Forces in Kandahar, are now a distant threat.

“So far, I feel happy here,” he said.

But he admits his fresh start has been bittersweet because of the absence of his daughter, Nazifa. The Taliban killed her at a military checkpoint on Dec. 10, a painful reminder of the dangers of leaving allies behind.

The family had applied to come to Canada four months earlier but had not yet been evacuated.

The fatal shooting of the 10-year-old shows the risks Afghans face as they wait for the Canadian government to live up to its pledge to resettle employees of its former military, diplomatic and humanitarian missions in Afghanistan.

In the days after Nazifa was killed, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said her death should “shock the conscience of every Canadian,” and vowed to “make good on our commitment to resettle 40,000 Afghan refugees, no matter what it takes.”

But a year after the Taliban took over the country, thousands of Afghans are still trying to get to Canada. While 17,000 have arrived since the armed group seized power on Aug. 15, 2021, many say they fear Canada has abandoned them.