The flight from Kabul opens a new humanitarian crisis

When the evacuation of Saigon began in March 1975, the idea of ​​using airplanes was quickly abandoned: using the runways under artillery fire was too difficult. Alternatively, the Americans used helicopters to bring people from the South Vietnamese capital to aircraft carriers in the South China Sea. In landlocked Kabul, the US government, which is attempting to take away its own citizens and Afghans who have worked for the US, does not have this option. So the scenes broadcast around the world from the city airport on August 15 and 16 were not those of helicopters carrying people to safety, but of an Apache helicopter hovering low over the runway to chase away the throng of desperate Afghans in to allow the planes to take off. The image that will be remembered is that of an Air Force transport aircraft taking off with some Afghans clinging to the landing gear, from which they will fall and lose their lives.

The chaos was predictable. For weeks, the flights out of Kabul have been crammed with foreigners and those Afghans lucky enough to have passports, visas and money. When the city fell to the Taliban, less than 24 hours after President Ashraf Ghani visited the capital’s borders to inspect its defenses, it was inevitable that people would try to flee. The airport is currently the only area in Kabul that is not controlled by militiamen, but is defended by thousands of US soldiers and other foreign troops, many flying in specifically for transfer operations. The Americans took control of the air traffic and their Boeing C-17s began to leave overloaded with refugees. According to the Defense One website, one of them landed in Qatar with 640 passengers, almost a record. The lifeless body of an Afghan was found in the landing gear of a C-17. One image showed entire families huddled in every free space in the hold.

In the coming weeks, the evacuation could take tens of thousands of people away. The Pentagon said at least 22,000 Afghans with “special immigrant visas” (SIV) requirements will be transported out of the country at a rate of 5,000 a day. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has told her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), that ten thousand people will be admitted. Priti Patel, UK secretary of state for home affairs, says the country will welcome up to 20,000 refugees, including up to 5,000 by this year. The UK had already planned to relocate 2,700 people, including 900 British citizens and 1,600 Afghans who worked directly with the London forces. It is not clear exactly how this will take place. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told a radio show that the government has set the August 31 deadline for immediate transfers to be completed. But as he pointed out, in a voice choked with emotion, “some people won’t make it.”

The last-minute panic to save the interpreters and other people who worked with foreign armies could have been avoided. The US Siv program has existed since 2009. But it took years to issue visas to former workers. By June, 16,000 Afghan workers and their families had been relocated under the program, but another 18,000 applications were still waiting to be examined. In Britain, the government had only relocated around 1,300 interpreters with their families in June. But on August 3 he changed his mind that Afghans hired indirectly through contractors were eligible. Haste today serves to make up for lost time.

The Taliban for their part insist that the race to escape is not necessary. They said they had “no plan to take revenge on anyone,” and promised a “general amnesty” for civil servants, asking them to return to work, while foreign diplomats said they could stay. The United Nations continued to work in many parts of the country. Afghan journalists from the TV channel ToloNews continued to broadcast, and some female presenters even interviewed Taliban officials live. But while it hasn’t hindered evacuation flights, Taliban soldiers have been reported to be monitoring people attempting to enter the airport, preventing many from leaving the country. Thousands of Afghans who could get permission to fly remain in hiding, wondering if they will be able to escape.

What will happen now? Over the past forty years of conflict, millions of Afghans have been displaced within the country’s borders, and then poured into neighboring countries. The UN has two and a half million registered refugees, roughly 6 percent of the country’s population. Of these, it is estimated that 780,000 Afghans were in Iran, but the United Nations estimates that there are another two million unregistered in the country. Still, 1.4 million Afghans have found long-term shelter in Pakistan. It is one of the largest refugee populations in the world. Attempts to repatriate some of these people are likely to be suspended, and their numbers will almost certainly soar. Iran is preparing for a stirring influx of Shia Muslims fleeing the Taliban, anti-Shia (even though Tehran has supported them in their fight against the United States), and is setting up camps in three provinces along its eastern border.

Many will probably try to go further. As they take away their citizens and collaborators, politicians in rich countries are already terrified of the advent of an even greater refugee crisis. Half a million Afghans may already be in Turkey. Even if no new fighting breaks out, many more could flee if the Taliban begin to impose their brutal version of Sharia law on Afghan cities, or if humanitarian aid collapses. Just on August 5, ministers from six European countries had signed a letter in which they supported the continuation of deportations for Afghans who have been refused asylum (many have now suspended the practice). French President Emmanuel Macron has promised to crack down on human traffickers, stating “we must foresee and protect ourselves from significant irregular migratory flows”. Amin Laschet, the CDU candidate who will succeed Merkel after next month’s German general elections, said: “We must not send the signal that Germany can welcome anyone in need”. German politicians are concerned that what happened in 2015, when more than a million Syrian refugees arrived in the country, may repeat itself. Some Europeans, and in particular Merkel, welcomed them, but soon afterwards a violent sovereign reaction was unleashed.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has asked other countries not to “prematurely recognize” the Taliban. But for now, tens of thousands of Afghans who have worked with international forces, along with their families, have been abandoned. Millions more people face an uncertain future. Their hope is that the promises of the Taliban will be worth something, but they fear the worst.

(Translation by Francesco De Lellis)