Afghan refugee in Lincoln hopes rest of his children will be here soon

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Monday marked World Refugee Day.

In Lincoln, refugees from both Ukraine and Afghanistan are adjusting to their new lives after experiencing extreme hardship across the Atlantic.

Safiulla Arsala is one of those refugees. After moving out of Afghanistan, Arsala immigrated from Germany to New Mexico to Nebraska.

“This is the new life,” he said. “I started from zero, but now I am happy to be here, and also I hope that my family, my remaining family who are back in Afghanistan, will join me.”

Here in Nebraska, Arsala has his wife and three sons, but back in Afghanistan, his four other sons and two daughters remain. That’s something Arsala worries about.

“If the Taliban knew I was working for the U.S Embassy, maybe they would create a lot of problems for my children,” said Arsala, who worked for the embassy for more than 14 years when he was living in Afghanistan.

Arsala is trying to get the rest of his family here as soon as possible.

Thanks to Catholic Social Services, he may now have the resources to help them do that.

When Arsala arrived in Nebraska, Catholic Social Services helped his family by providing them with housing, schooling for the kids, and more.

After three months, the organization even offered Arsala a job. He is now working there as a driver and translator.

All Arsala hopes, for now, is to have his whole family back together again.

“I hope, again, the United States government assists us as they did before to immigrate our family from Afghanistan to the United States,” he said. “That will be so kind if they did that.”