For the past few weeks, Yalda Afif, an Afghan program officer for HIAS in New York, and Bahar*, an Afghan refugee resettled by HIAS who now volunteers for the organization, have fielded scores of phone calls from family, friends and others in Afghanistan, desperate for help as the country quickly fell to the Taliban.

For this special episode of Crossing Borders, journalist Rhoda Metcalf spoke with the two HIAS staffers, who have listened to the anguished pleas of their countrymen, fearful of getting trapped along with thousands of others at the end of a 20-year war.