Status: 08/19/2021 5:42 p.m.
Federal Interior Minister Seehofer wants to bring Afghan local workers and their families to Germany as soon as possible. This is a “moral responsibility”. Meanwhile, the refugees’ evacuation flights are continuing.
Federal Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer has expressly committed to accepting local Afghan workers and their families. After his appearance in the Interior Committee of the Bundestag, he assured:
It is completely undisputed that the local workers and their family members should come to Germany and that there is also a moral responsibility for this.
At the same time, he emphasized the possibility of carrying out visa procedures and security checks only after the person concerned has entered the country. Seehofer admitted that this involved a certain security risk, but emphasized: “If you want a solution here, you have to take this risk.”
Horst Seehofer, Federal Minister of the Interior: “Local employees are not refugees or asylum seekers.”
tagesschau24 4:00 p.m., August 19, 2021
In addition, the necessary security check is not a matter of days or weeks, but just a matter of seconds. He also stood behind the talks with the radical Islamic Taliban in order to secure the safe exit of local forces in this way.
It is not possible to forecast the number of refugees
He did not want to give a forecast of the total number of Afghan refugees to be expected as a result of the Taliban’s takeover of power. The range of estimates ranges from a few thousand people to a few million, according to Seehofer.
He also warned against a loss of trust in Western values:
The western community failed in Afghanistan. If the western community and the European Union, which I would like to mention here in particular, also fail in dealing with the consequences, then we would have a huge problem of trust in our community of values.
A military plane carrying evacuees from Afghanistan arrives in Dubai.
Image: AFP
Evacuation flights are in progress
Meanwhile, numerous Afghans are desperately trying to get abroad via one of the evacuation flights of western countries, especially the USA. The Taliban have set up checkpoints around the airport. For many, including citizens of Western countries, there is hardly any getting through there.
The Bundeswehr has so far brought more than 900 people from Kabul to Germany. At around 3 a.m., an A400M with 211 people on board landed in the Uzbek capital Tashkent, the Bundeswehr operations command announced on Twitter. From there they should be flown on to Germany.