Sluggish evacuations
“Left in the lurch”: That is how desperate is the situation of the local workers in Afghanistan
These men wait with wheelbarrows for food, which is distributed by the United Nations’ World Food Program in Kabul – millions of Afghans live in poverty
© Hector Retamal / AFP
The federal government has so far taken 8,500 local workers and their families out of Afghanistan, more than twice as many are still stuck. The criticism of the slow evacuations is growing.
More than three months after the fall of Kabul, the situation is desperate for many Afghans. Around 19,000 local employees and their relatives are waiting to leave the country – that’s what the Foreign Office says star-Inquiry. “Since the middle of August, the federal government has been able to help around 8,500 people to leave Afghanistan.” Further exit options by land and air are being worked on under high pressure.
“In close coordination with the Federal Foreign Office, we are currently intensively looking for ways to enable local Bundeswehr personnel who are authorized to enter Germany to enter Germany,” affirmed a spokesman for the Bundeswehr operations command star.
On August 15, the Taliban entered the capital Kabul without a fight and have since controlled the entire country. Thousands tried to flee with the last foreign fliers, many stayed behind. Since the Islamists were in charge, foreign aid was frozen and one of the worst droughts in decades hit the country, hundreds of thousands of people have ended up in poverty. With devastating effects: According to UN figures, more than half of Afghans will no longer have enough to eat by November. And winter is just around the corner.
Sharp criticism of the federal government
This is one of the reasons why the people behind “Kabul Airlift “ The efforts of the Federal Government to date to recruit former supporters of the Bundeswehr and German non-governmental organizations have not stopped. The private initiative announced on Tuesday at a press conference To have flown 148 people out of Afghanistan on a donation-financed charter flight last weekend – because too little is happening on the part of the federal government. According to Teresa Breuer, one of the initiators of the “Kabul Airlift”, some of the people who were flown out had waited months for their residence permit and hid from the Taliban during the time.
Ulrich Karpenstein, lawyer and member of the board, also found clear words German Bar Association: “As the German Lawyers’ Association, we see a failure of German departments in a way that I have not personally experienced before.” The lawyer said at the initiative’s press conference that the lowest level of the rule of law would be undercut if inquiries as to whether clients were on the lists for the evacuation were not answered for weeks.
“Many people in Afghanistan are afraid”
German journalists are also faced with the problem of getting their translators and research assistants out of the country. starReporter Jan-Christoph Wiechmann reports on his Afghan colleague Rasool Sekandari, who made it with his family on a flight from Kabul to the US base in Ramstein. Despite an entry permit from the Foreign Office, the family was not allowed to leave the US Air Base – and was ultimately flown to the USA against their will.
“Zeit” reporter Wolfgang Bauer According to his own statements, with the support of the “Kabul Airlift”, he succeeded in bringing around 45 people – his team and their families – from Afghanistan to Germany. “Many people in Afghanistan are afraid,” says Bauer. “But one also has to distinguish between those endangered by the Taliban and those who want to leave the country legally for economic reasons.” It is true that only people from Afghanistan who are on the lists of German authorities would come out anyway. But these should have been put together very quickly. “It was crazy to ask the media and NGOs to put everyone at risk on lists within days.”
He himself coordinated the list of several German publishers and media houses – the psychological pressure was enormous. “Rotating numbers on one of the lists and a person at risk may not get a permit to enter Germany.” And without a guarantee from the Federal Foreign Office, there would be no point in getting people out of Afghanistan – they would then be stranded in a neighboring country.
List position decisive for leaving the country
Another problem with the lists is names “Zeitenspiegel” reporter Carsten Stormer, who reported regularly from Afghanistan until 2018: The lists are closed. “A protagonist from my TV report doesn’t appear on any of the lists. You don’t get any personal contact with people in ministries. I emailed all possible addresses in German ministries about him, but didn’t even get an answer.”
His conclusion: “The federal government could and should have done a lot more.” Although everything underestimated the speed of the Taliban’s advance, the evacuation could have been prepared at the latest when the US announced it would withdraw. “People who have done a lot for Germany are being left in the lurch.”
Passport problems in the Foreign Office
At the request of the star the Ministry of Foreign Affairs justifies the sluggish evacuations with missing papers. “One of the greatest difficulties is the lack of passports for local staff and particularly vulnerable people. It is currently not possible to leave the country without a passport, either by land or by air.” We are therefore currently negotiating with the neighboring countries of Afghanistan to enable people without passports to leave the country by land.
After the fall of Kabul, the Foreign Office was overwhelmed, admits the press spokesman Christofer Burger on the Press conference of “Kabul Airlift” a. “Sometimes we had 130,000 calls a day and a similar number of e-mails,” says Burger. The processes are now much better: The German embassies in the neighboring states of Afghanistan only needed two weeks to issue a visa. He advocates that foreign ministries and initiatives such as the “Kabul Airlift” use their well-functioning contacts to work together on the further evacuation.
The Defense Ministry is also working flat out and together with other ministries to enable all “authorized local staff” – currently 600 people who have worked for the Bundeswehr and their 2,400 members – to enter Germany. “Whether our efforts will be successful, however, also depends on many other factors that we cannot influence, or only to a limited extent.”
Teresa Breuer of the “Kabul Airlift” urged more haste with the evacuations: “Many people have been hiding out for months and are slowly despairing because they don’t know how things will go from them – even people with an evacuation agreement who already have should be out of the country long ago. “
Sources: Video of the press conference of “Kabul Airlift”, Inquiries to the Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of Defense and the Federal Ministry of the Interior