Afghanistan Peace CampaignMissile sirens ring out every few hours. Young children scream in terror. Fire lights up the sky.
For more than a thousand Afghan refugees trapped at a U.S.-run camp in Qatar, this is daily life since the United States and Israel started a war with Iran less than a week ago.
Since the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, these individuals have been awaiting resettlement in the United States at Camp As Sayliyah, a U.S. military base-turned refugee camp outside Qatar’s capital of Doha.
Many of the 1,100 Afghan refugees in limbo at the base served alongside U.S. forces during the occupation of their country, and some 150 of them are family members of active duty U.S. servicemembers. They can no longer return to their homeland, where they would be at risk of persecution or death by the ruling Taliban government.
Four refugees at the camp spoke to USA TODAY on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive situation. Camp residents received messages from officials and Qatar’s government ordering them not to speak publicly about the missile attacks since the war broke out days ago.
“We came from war,” a 14-year-old girl living in the camp told USA TODAY. “Right now, it’s also war here, missiles coming, missiles going, explosions every day.”
About 800 of the camp’s residents, who fled Afghanistan after the United States withdrew from their country, were cleared to enter the United States under the refugee resettlement program after extensive vetting and interview processes, according to a letter sent to Trump administration officials by AfghanEvac, an advocacy organization for Afghan allies. Within hours of taking office in 2025, President Donald Trump suspended the relocation program indefinitely, plunging their lives into chaos and uncertainty. Many Afghans have now been stranded at the Qatar camp for years.
In a joint letter to the State Department and members of Congress, residents of the camp wrote that “the container housing units where we live provide no meaningful protection, and there are no reinforced shelters immediately accessible to residents. Mothers and children often have nowhere secure to go when these alarms sound.”
A State Department spokesperson told USA TODAY in an email, “We are actively addressing all related operational concerns in the region,” including “the safety of residents at Camp As-Sayliyah (CAS) under U.S. care.”
Missile fragments crash into family’s shelter
The missile alerts, refugees at the camp told USA TODAY, came every 15 minutes or less on the first day of the war. They’re now happening every few hours.
Young children and pregnant women scream in terror as explosions sound nearby, the refugees said. According to the 14-year-old girl, most people in the camp, including the girl and her parents, have already been prescribed antidepressants for their high stress. One man said he believes his wife delivered her baby prematurely days ago due to the stress of being trapped in a war with no way out.
A 50-year-old man who fled Afghanistan after working for more than a decade with the U.S. government said he begged camp authorities to relocate children to a safer place, but they said there was nowhere else to go.
On March 2, the man said, around a hundred people packed their bags and tried to escape through the camp’s main gate in hopes of reaching Doha and pleading for help from Qatari officials, but security guards ordered the group back.
“The government is busy. They can do nothing for you,” they told the man. “They are busy and saving their own people.”
People who have lived in the camp for years have already been “crippled psychologically,” said the man. But the missile barrage, he said, has pushed many over the edge.
Refugees in the camp live in large warehouses, hundreds of people to one structure, where they sleep on bunk beds. Since the missile barrage began, people have moved into metal shipping crates to sleep, they said. Photos and videos they shared with USA TODAY showed families of seven and eight packed into one container, children huddled in narrow crannies against the wall. As missiles explode outside, the walls shake, refugees said.
A father who has lived in the camp for more than a year with his wife and five children said his youngest daughter, who is 10, has stopped eating or sleeping since the missile barrage began.
She is “retraumatized,” he said. “All day and night, she is crying.”
“What will be our future? What will be the future of our kids?”