Over the last 24 hours, Afghan women, journalists, human rights advocates and former translators for the U.S. military have flooded U.S.-based refugee groups with desperate messages seeking a way out of their country now that the Taliban have taken control.

“They’re really sitting ducks,” said Gayatri Patel, the vice president for external relations at the Women’s Refugee Commission.

Patel and other advocates have been working feverishly to assemble a “master list” of potential evacuees, even as they watch in horror at the chaos unfolding at the Kabul airport, where panicked Afghans have rushed the tarmac and tried to grab ahold of departing planes.

In addition to USA Today, this article appeared in MSN and Yahoo! News.

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