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Kabul Small Animal Rescue began as a small effort to help address the needs of stray animals in Kabul and to assist our partner organizations in transporting adopted pets to their homes outside of Afghanistan. We registered formally as a veterinary clinic in 2019 and began assisting local and foreign organizations and embassies with feline trap-vaccinate-neuter-release (TNVR) programs on their grounds and gained Afghan NGO status in 2020, branching out our work to include the care of K9 working dogs. When Covid-19 hit Afghanistan and flights worldwide were grounded, KSAR remained open for intake and our population boomed. 

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When flights re-opened in late 2020, KSAR began transporting animals to their adopters in North America and Europe, many of them US soldiers. In June 2021, when the US Center for Disease Control announced a ban on dogs from 113 countries entering the US and gave 30 days warning before the border closed on July 15th, KSAR partnered with rescues throughout the US and teams of volunteers to move 76 dogs in 3 weeks. Less than a month later, KSAR staff and partners worked tirelessly to evacuate our animals and local staff as the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan neared completion and the sitting government fell. We failed in our efforts that August and were forced to regroup to save our animals and learn how to effectively operate under and work with the new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan government. In October 2021, KSAR obtain a license from the US Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Asset Control (OFAC) to legally operate in Afghanistan. 

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In January 2022, after months of planning, we were finally able to load 286 rescue animals on a chartered flight to Canada, paid for entirely with personal donations from supporters around the world. An enormous team of rescue organizations and volunteers in Vancouver welcomed our dogs and cats and began working to get the owned animals home and finding fosters and adopters for the rescues. In April, KSAR staff arrived on site in Canada and worked with a dedicated team of volunteers to complete the mission and arrange the adoptions and transport for the last of the animals from this enormous evacuation flight.