Separated from her fiancé by Afghanistan's collapse, a Canadian begs Ottawa for help

The last few weeks should have been among the happiest of Safia's life. She was supposed to be a new bride by now, on her way to a new life.

Instead, the collapse of Afghanistan and the internment in Tajikistan of her fiancé, a former Afghan Air Force pilot, have turned her dream into an ongoing nightmare.

Safia, a Canadian citizen of Afghan origin, told her story to CBC News on the condition that she be identified only by a pseudonym in order to protect her relatives and those of her fiancé, who are still trapped in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. 

Their wedding had been scheduled for the first week of September in Afghanistan. The couple had carried out a long-distance relationship after meeting in the United Arab Emirates just before the pandemic. She had planned to sponsor him to become a Canadian citizen after his military service was completed.

Instead, Safia spent August watching in horror as the western-backed government of former president Ashraf Ghani dissolved and the hardline Islamist Taliban returned to power.

"I was terrified," she said, describing the day Kabul fell. "I kept messaging that day back and forth and calling."

Her fiancé tried to calm her down by saying the U.S. military would evacuate the Afghan pilots. Those pilots had been targets of a Taliban assassination campaign throughout the summer, and there was every reason to believe that those captured in the aftermath of the government's collapse would be slaughtered.