With the flood of refugees leaving Afghanistan this week (or at least attempting to) one of the more encouraging stories we’ve seen involves the number of countries that have stepped up to offer assistance. These include many long-time US allies and even some nations we’ve been a bit more standoffish with. Most of the world seems to realize that the scourge of the Taliban – now mixed into a quagmire with Al Qaeda and ISIS – isn’t going to produce anything good, and plenty of them are reaching out to help. Three countries who have offered to help with this effort have been asking when their turn at bat will be coming, however. The nations of Northern Macedonia, Kosovo, and Albania all agreed to lend some of their limited space and resources to put up the refugees. But thus far, while the welcome mat has been rolled out, no American planes have arrived to drop off the human cargo they are expecting. (NBC News)

Three Balkan countries have offered to help desperate Afghans, but no refugees have flown in on American flights.

As thousands of people continue to throng around Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, officials in North Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania — neighboring Balkan countries whose populations have experienced violence themselves — said last week that they had offered to temporarily take in those fleeing Afghanistan.

But a week after the Taliban completed its lightning-fast takeover of the country, finally walking into Kabul last Sunday without firing a shot, no refugees have arrived on American flights, officials in the countries said. They did not know when the Afghans would arrive.

At first glance, it might seem odd that there are nations ready and willing to take in the refugees with nobody showing up, but there are probably some logical explanations. It sounds as if the governments of all three countries have been in touch with the U.S. State Department and been told that planes will be arriving, but no specific dates or times were provided, so they’re still biding their time until such notification is received.

The first thing to remember is that we’ve already gotten a significant number of people out of Afghanistan, but the initial flights were mostly determined in advance. People with American passports were going to Virginia and other destinations in the United States. Those with SIVs and other approved documentation may have gone to America also. Some of the first loads of helpers requiring more processing went to Germany and a couple of other locations with American bases and willing governments.

As for the true refugees, we’ve been setting up waystations for them in a few locations, but they are filling up fast. So these three countries will probably find themselves being taken up on their offers soon enough, assuming terrorists don’t shut down the airport in Kabul again.

Location may be another factor. Macedonia, Kosovo, and Albania aren’t exactly next door. They are located on the northern end of the Greek peninsula. But that’s not much of an excuse either when you consider that we’ve already been running flights to Germany, which is nearly twice as far away and you almost have to fly directly over Northern Macedonia to get there in a straight line.

We may also be looking at the bigger countries that can take in the largest volume of refugees first. While the offer from these nations seems earnest and is no doubt appreciated, Northern Macedonia is a tiny nation. They’ve said they will be able to accept 650 migrants and put them up. That’s very helpful and appreciated, but we have literally tens of thousands of people to get out of the war zone. Kosovo and Albania aren’t much larger and will likely take similar numbers.

The United States has had excellent relations with Albania and Northern Macedonia for quite a while now, so they’ll likely be pulled into this operation. Our relationship with Kosovo is more recent and has been rocky at times because of their ongoing feuds with Serbia, but that situation has been improving as well. Hopefully, this will all be sorted out in the next few days and we can start setting up temporary quarters for the refugees in all three countries.