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Ally soldiers look for Afghans to airlift to South Korea with a sign that reads “Korea” on one soldier’s hand at the Kabul international airport. (provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

An Afghan woman in a light brown checkered hijab smiled bravely in an interview with South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) at the Islamabad airport, in Pakistan, on Tuesday. The woman, who appeared to be in her early 30s, had spent years working for the Korean embassy in Afghanistan.

“I’m here with my husband and my two sons,” she said. “It wasn’t an easy decision, but we had to do it,” the woman said when asked why she’d decided to come to Korea.

As long as she remained in Afghanistan, there was no telling what retribution the Taliban might mete out to her and her family for helping South Korea, an American ally. At last, she’d worked up the courage to ask the embassy staff to rescue her and her family.

A total of 378 Afghans — out of 391 altogether — set foot on Korean soil after touching down at Incheon Airport on Thursday.

Given Korea’s status as a small but powerful country, with the world’s 10th largest economy, and the “moral responsibility for the predicament faced by our colleagues,” in the words of Second Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Choi Jong-moon, there’s a natural urge to applaud the South Korean government for reaching such a quick decision.

But it’s also true that a number of concerns arise about letting so many people into Korea all at once. Indeed, this is the first such airlift in the history of Korean diplomacy.

The controversy over a group of Yemeni refugees who came to Jeju Island in 2018 shows that even a minor incident could incite a wave of xenophobia about the Afghans who’ve come to Korea.

Such concerns may explain why the government treats these Afghans not as refugees but as “persons of special merit.”

One thing evident in the interview footage that MOFA provided the press pool on Thursday was how many children are in the group of evacuees. One boy, around five or six years of age, could be seen loitering in the background of the screen, apparently fascinated by the interview. And toward the end of the interview, one can hear the whimpering of a fussy baby in its mother’s arms.

Korea evacuated 76 families of Afghan employees to help them avoid any retaliation by the Taliban.

“These parents are young, so they’re bringing a lot of young children with them,” said Kim Man-gi, chief of policy at the Ministry of National Defense and the director of the airlift operation.

More specifically, the group includes 118 children below the age of six and around 80 between the ages of six and ten.

The Afghans who are resettling in Korea will likely have to resign themselves to an open-ended “diaspora lifestyle.” They may not be able to return to Afghanistan as long as the Taliban are in charge.

“I left my mother and other family members behind,” said one teary-eyed man, apparently in his 40s, who was interviewed. He seemed to be confronting the prospect of living out his days apart from his family.

Another concern for these Afghans is the future of their precious children. Just as Korean migrants have done in Japan, China and the Soviet Union in years past, these young Afghans will have to learn the Korean language, attend Korean schools, and become members of Korean society.

I was reminded of the experience of a Pakistani-Korean couple whom I met about ten years ago. Born in Pakistan, Park Israr, aged 41 at the time of our interview, met a Korean woman in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, in 1994, and married her two years later. He gained Korean citizenship eight years after that, in 2004.

Park’s nine-year-old son, Habibi, bragged to me about how he’d recently gotten his first-degree junior black belt in Taekwondo. Aside from his dark skin, he behaved exactly like any other Korean child would.

I haven’t forgotten the sadness that Park and his wife shared about the cliquish culture and the racism that are so deep-rooted in Korean society.

“Learning that someone is coming / is actually overwhelming,” wrote Jeong Hyeon-jong in his poem, “The Visitor.”

Koreans’ modern history has been heartbreaking, including Japan’s colonial occupation and the division of the peninsula into North and South. I wonder if Koreans are prepared to sympathize with the pain of these Afghans.

I hope we will give our new guests a warm welcome and help them become fine members of Korean society without forgetting their roots in the country they’ve left behind.

By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]