‘Life or death.’ Franklin Graham calls for day of prayer for the Afghan people.
Citing the “brutality” of the Taliban, “including beheadings and public executions,” North Carolina-based evangelist Franklin Graham is calling for a day of prayer on Sunday for the people of Afghanistan.
“Thousands of people are desperately trying to escape from Afghanistan after the country’s fall to the Taliban,” Graham said in a statement on Friday.
“This is a life or death situation for Christians and other religious minorities, and all those who worked with or for America over the past two decades,” he said.
The Taliban, he said, have blocked access to the country’s airport “and all exit routes.”
“There is no hope for these people to get out safely — apart from a miracle from the hand of God — and that’s what we need to pray for,” Graham said.
Son of the late evangelist Billy Graham, Franklin Graham is president and CEO of the Charlotte-based Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Boone-based Samaritan’s Purse humanitarian aid organization.
‘To watch this hurts’
Samaritan’s Purse is working with other groups to get people out of the country, Graham said. He didn’t say in his statement which groups or how they’re trying to get people out of the country.
“To watch this hurts,” Edward Graham, Franklin Graham’s youngest son, said in the statement. Edward Graham works with Samaritan’s Purse and served six combat deployments in special operations forces in Afghanistan.
“I spent years there and lost many friends,” Edward Graham said. “There are many Afghan people that I love. This is a man-made disaster, and there isn’t a person or an organization that can fix this.”
“Only God can deliver us from this crisis,” he said.
On Friday, President Joe Biden promised “to bring home any American still trapped in Afghanistan,” The New York Times reported.
The Taliban takeover of the country amid a U.S. pullout after a 20-year war has “brought about a crisis gripping all corners from Kabul to Camp David,” the BBC reported Friday.