EXCLUSIVE: Catholic Apostolate Secures Medical Treatment for Girls Displaced by ISIS

CV NEWS FEED // The Vulnerable People Project, a Catholic apostolate, has succeeded in brokering the resettlement of 20 displaced Afghan girls and arranging their medical treatment in Spain in collaboration with the Jewish Humanitarian Response.

The Vulnerable People Project (VPP) worked in “collaboration with the Jewish Humanitarian Response (JHR) to evacuate 20 Afghan girls to Spain after an ISIS attack,” the organization told CatholicVote.

“We are working with the JHR to help young girls aged 14 – 19 who were victims of an ISIS attack at their school in Kaaj, Afghanistan,” said VPP founder and President Jason Jones:

It’s a miracle they are alive and we intend to preserve their lives and provide everything they need. Anytime young girls’ lives are threatened, this becomes our highest priority to find safe shelter and to work to get community support for the vulnerable.

Jones and VPP staff greet and see to the initial needs of some of the girls as they arrive.

The Spanish government, working with VPP, has granted visas to 20 out of a total of 118 girls affected. The remainder will go to Canada.

VPP stated that the “urgent mission” of stepping in to help the girls was not only a matter of resettlement, but of providing them “with medical attention, language translation and community support.”

“Our team will be on the ground in Spain along with members of the Jewish Humanitarian Response to greet the first group of displaced girls to assure them of our support,” VPP Legislative and Diplomatic Liaison Marilis Pineiro explained. “Their parents are unable to accompany the girls because they did not have passports, but because of the severity of the injuries they sustained from the ISIS attack, it was determined it is best to move the girls now and get them medical care, then parents will follow soon.” 

Pineiro added: “Our team secured pro bono medical care thanks to the cooperation of Dr. Pablo Barreiro Garcia, director of the Hospital Ruber Internacional.”

A warm welcome and a shopping trip.

“When the U.S. Military pulled forces out of the region in 2021, The Vulnerable People Project was there to provide urgent humanitarian aid to the people in need,” the organization said in a statement to CatholicVote. Since then,

VPP has evacuated more than 1,000 Afghan refugees to a safer, temporary new country. VPP has reunited babies with parents, delivered food and fuel to more than 30,000 families last winter, and established security at 4 Hazara girls’ schools and one university for an entire year. VPP also rebuilt the first women’s hospital in the county and established a water system for an entire town in a remote part of the country.

Jones, a Catholic human rights worker, activist, and filmmaker, says he has promised VPP will remain “steadfast in its mission to serve and save the vulnerable in this region.” And despite the many tragedies still ongoing in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal: “By God’s grace we are pulling off miracles.” 

In the case of the 20 girls safely brought to Spain, Jones expressed gratitude to the Jewish Humanitarian Response, and also praised the effort as an example of what faithful Catholics can accomplish when they generously respond to God’s call to treat vulnerable people as “made in His image” with “incomparable worth and dignity.”

Readers can learn more about and support the Vulnerable People Project’s work in Afghanistan by visiting TheGreatCampaign.com.