Military Bases Turn Into Small Cities as Afghans Wait Months for Homes in U.S.
The New York Times
An estimated 53,000 evacuees from Kabul remain on eight military bases across the country. Thousands more are waiting at U.S. bases abroad to come to the United States.
FORT MCCOY, Wis. — In late August, evacuees from Afghanistan began arriving by the busload to the Fort McCoy Army base in the Midwest, carrying little more than cellphones and harrowing tales of their narrow escapes from a country they may never see again. They were greeted by soldiers, assigned rooms in white barracks and advised not to stray into the surrounding forest, lest they get lost.
More than a month later, the remote base some 170 miles from Milwaukee is home to 12,600 Afghan evacuees, almost half of them children, now bigger than any city in western Wisconsin’s Monroe County.
The story is much the same on seven other military installations from Texas to New Jersey. Overall, roughly 53,000 Afghans have been living at these bases since the chaotic evacuation from Kabul this summer that marked the end of 20 years of war. While many Americans have turned their attention away from the largest evacuation of war refugees since Vietnam, the operation is very much a work in progress here, overseen by a host of federal agencies and thousands of U.S. troops.
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