WASHINGTON (SBG) - Nearly two months after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, lawmakers say that there are still allies left behind in hiding as they wait to be rescued. President and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services Krish Vignarajah said accomplishing the “historic effort” of removing special immigrant visa holders and relocating them to the U.S. has faced challenges.

“Right now there are about 50,000 Afghan refugees being held across eight military bases in the U.S.," said Vignarajah to The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat. “There were a handful of measles cases, which prompted federal officials to implement a quarantine period, so that caused something of a delay.”

According to Vignarajah, there has since been a massive effort to vaccinate all refugees against measles, chickenpox, and COVID-19.

“While the majority remain on the bases, about 6,000 people so far have already started rebuilding their lives in towns and cities across America, it's been amazing,” said Vignarajah.

Vignarajah says one of the biggest challenges in resettling Afghan refugees has been affordable housing.

“Imagine that you're a refugee, you have no financial nest egg to draw from. No job yet, so no guaranteed income” said Vignarajah. “That's where LIRS as an organization has been focused. In some cases, we've provided several months of rent in advance. We've had to be collaborative and creative, so we forged new partnerships with companies like Airbnb to provide temporary housing.”

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, some Afghan parents have been forced to sell their children as poverty deepens under Taliban rule. The United Nations warns that 95% of Afghans aren’t getting enough to eat as “people are being pushed to the brink of survival.”

“Girls are not a commodity, they’re not disposable and they’re not income...the Taliban government has already trampled upon women's rights and essentially banned girls from getting an education,” said Vignarajah. “Since the fall of Kabul, the Afghanistan economy has been devastated. The UN estimates that the entire Afghan population of 40 million could fall below the poverty line in the coming month.”

Vignarajah says in order to help the Afghan people, “we need to leverage every soft power tool in our toolkit through diplomacy and humanitarian aid.”

“We do need to rally our allies, we need to push for regional engagement to prevent violence. We need to serve additional humanitarian assistance directly to the Afghan people, and we need to put pressure on the Taliban to uphold the basic rights of the Afghan people, especially women and girls,” said Vignarajah.