Watch the video: Afghan local forces appeal to Germany.
Two years after the withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan and the takeover of power by the radical Islamic Taliban, numerous former local Bundeswehr personnel are still waiting to emigrate to Germany. Afghans who worked for the Bundeswehr and were able to leave the country after the Taliban took power met in Berlin on Saturday. It hurts many of them that they had to leave parts of their families behind. In Germany, the acceptance of admission is limited to the core family, i.e. spouses and underage children. Yasin Khoja, former local army officer: “They promised me and my family in Afghanistan that they would save us all, not just half of the family. And they have now left half of them in Afghanistan. That means that the federal government or the armed forces have separated us. And we didn’t deserve that. There are people who are not local staff at all, but still have a chance of being admitted. But my kids who are over 19 don’t stand a chance. And I can’t understand that.” Marcus Grotian, who used to be a Bundeswehr soldier in Afghanistan himself, as chairman of the local staff sponsorship network, has been pushing for a long time to revise the local staff procedure and expand the group of people in the nuclear family, as has already happened in other countries. “I understand any frustration from any local force saying, ‘You left us all behind. You all ‘fucked’ us. And also if you tell me that. Yes, I wasn’t always successful either and I wasn’t able to introduce many things to politics in time. I tried with all my might and it still wasn’t enough. We all have to live with that. But we also have to look ahead and make sure that the same mistakes don’t happen again in the future.” Grotian fears that Germany might not have learned anything from the mistakes made when withdrawing from Afghanistan. He means the situation in Sudan or In Mali and Niger, where the situation has deteriorated further following a recent coup, Bundeswehr soldiers and their local staff could also be affected there.