"Dad, we can't stay here, we are going to die."
In the living room of a suburban Gold Coast home, Saeed Aoalya Hashimi breaks down as he recalls the words of his teenage son outside Kabul airport.
He remembers the fear as bullets whizzed past his family's heads as they tried desperately to board a mercy flight the Australian government had arranged to get its citizens out of Afghanistan.
On the sixth attempt, they made it through the crowd, into the airport and onto a military cargo plane that evacuated them to Dubai.
Safely settled back in Australia, Mr Hashimi and the Gold Coast's tight-knit Afghan community are now fighting to secure humanitarian visas for thousands of at-risk friends and family left behind.
Desperate escape
After living in Queensland for two decades having become an Australian citizen in 1994, Mr Hashimi returned to the country of his birth in 2011 to take up a job with the Afghan government.
He was working as a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Finance when US forces withdrew in August 2021.
His job was to administer the "nation building" infrastructure projects funded by the West, but in the wake of the Taliban takeover, that became a crime punishable by death.
Mr Hashimi, his wife and their son escaped with nothing but their passports, a small backpack and the clothes on their back.
"I have lost everything," he said.
"It was hell. I have never seen such chaos.
"I said, 'Please get us out, don't let us die here'."
Families left behind
Mr Hashimi is one of the lucky ones.
The Gold Coast's Afghan community has compiled a list of hundreds of relatives they say are in limbo, waiting for humanitarian visa applications that were lodged in August 2021 to be processed.
Many have been forced to flee their homes and are living in exile in Pakistan and Iran where they still face persecution and the constant threat of deportation, but have access to consular services.
The list includes dozens of high-risk applicants who they believe would almost certainly be killed by the Taliban in an effort to purge anyone associated with the previous administration.
While waiting for his refugee visa to be processed Mr Hashimi's nephew, Esmatullah*, a former Afghan Directorate of Security operator, disappeared from his home and has not been seen or heard from since.
His family are certain he was taken by the Taliban and cling to the hope that he has been imprisoned, not executed.
Applications stall
For almost two years Mr Hashimi's brother, Saeed Mujahid, has tried in vain to secure humanitarian visas for his father-in-law Sayed* and his family.
Sayed, a judge who was responsible for imprisoning Taliban fighters and ISIS terrorists, fears his life is now in danger.
Mr Mujahid said their applications had stalled, important supporting documents have not been updated and there has been no communication from the Department of Home Affairs.
He said distressed families had been left in the dark and he accused the Australian government of abandoning them.
"Australia has a moral obligation to protect these people who helped them," he said.
"They are considered infidels — traitors — because they worked with Western governments. They are not even considered Muslims.
"[The Taliban] secretly take them out of their homes at night and kill them.
"In Afghanistan, they don't just come after you, they come after your family. That's how it works there."
Mr Mujahid said many of the sponsors of visa applicants are highly-educated business owners with the means to house, employ and finance their relatives in Australia.
"We want to know why they have left us behind," Mr Mujahid said.
"We have exhausted every avenue trying to bring attention to these cases.
"Why are they not processing them? Why is it taking two years?"
Monumental backlog
Since the Taliban seized control 11,600 Afghans have been granted Australian refugee visas, but more than 177,000 have applied.
The federal government said it had "met and exceeded" its commitment of 6,125 humanitarian visas this financial year.
Priority is being given to "certified former locally engaged employees and their immediate family", but that definition is vague and disputed by many Afghans.
"[Afghans connected to the former government] are not given the same priority as somebody who worked directly with the Australian armed forces or the Australia Embassy would be given, but there is absolutely no doubt that people in that situation are at risk," Paul Power, the chief executive of the Refugee Council of Australia, said.
Mr Power acknowledged the "extraordinarily difficult" task the government faced and said he believed the Department of Home Affairs was mindful of not giving false hope as it waded through the mountain of refugee applications.
"So many of the 170,000 people are in those high-priority categories," he said.
"The reality is that it is not going to be possible for Australia to meet the needs of everyone who needs its help.
"Well under 10 per cent of the applications they currently have before them will be successful."
Falling short
The refugee council said that aid and humanitarian efforts had not been proportionate to the "catastrophe" created by Western nations deciding to withdraw.
"The international response is falling well short of the humanitarian need," Mr Power said.
"Sadly, the experience of the families that you have been in contact with are quite common."
Mr Hashimi said more needed to be done for the people left behind who had helped the West fight its war on terror.
* The ABC has withheld elements of Sayed and Esmatullah's identity because of security concerns
