Please help resettle Afghan surgeon's wife and 7 children

For the past six months I have been helping to reunite hundreds of women and children in Afghanistan with their husbands and fathers already here in Canada.  Today, I am reaching out with a request for one family facing particular hardships.

This GoFundMe is raising funds to pay for Dr. B's* wife and 7 children between the ages of 7 and 19 travel to Canada and assist with resettlement, including rent and furnishings, and to support the family's living expenses in these critical early months.  The fundraising has been organized because Dr. B and his family are not qualified to receive any travel or resettlement support from the government, nor is he qualified to receive loans. They are not considered refugees because their immigration process was already in place when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. 

Dr. B, a renowned Afghan orthopaedic surgeon, sought refuge in Canada in 2016. At that time his life was repeatedly threatened by the Taliban because he was saving the lives of people wounded by landmines and saving their limbs from being amputated with a unique medical device he invented. 

With deep regret Dr. B left behind his family - his youngest child was 1 when he had to flee. After arriving in Canada he started the immigration process, expecting his family would be reunited within a year. Inexplicably his immigration has taken over 6 years to complete.

In 2020, following bouts of severe anxiety due to the long separation from his family, Dr. B was diagnosed with a brain condition that requires a life-saving operation. Due to the uncertainty of the surgery's outcome, his surgeon has stressed the need to have his family here to care for him afterwards.

In October 2021, the Taliban found Dr. B's family and threatened to kidnap his teen-age daughters if Dr. B did not return to Afghanistan. His wife had to flee into hiding with the children - where they lived for over two months in one room, often eating just one meal a day. The Taliban have now taken all the family's assets leaving them with nothing.

At the end of January 2022, Dr. B was accepted as a Permanent Resident of Canada - which meant his family is finally allowed to join him. He is overjoyed and describes the feeling as having been given a new life. But delaying this surgery has caused his eyesight and his overall health to seriously deteriorate, leaving him unable to work for well over a year. He is only 41 years old.

His wife (an exhausted hero) and children have now crossed the border into Pakistan where they are completing immigration requirements. This will take several more weeks, but they should be ready to come to Canada by the end of February. They are once again in a single room and sleeping on the floor. But this time they know their years of waiting are almost over.

In 2016 Dr. B chose Canada for his children’s future. With generous hearts, please help to bring them home, help their beloved father through his surgery,  and make their dreams of life in Canada come true!

* NOTE: Due to security concerns for his family who are still in Pakistan, I cannot use his real name.