Further allegations against the German government in connection with evacuations from Afghanistan. The “Kabul Airlift” initiative accuses German authorities of actively obstructing an authorized flight.
The private rescue initiative “Kabul Airlift” has accused the German government of a lack of support and massive resistance to the prepared evacuation of those in need of protection from Afghanistan. “With immense effort, we were able to bring 18 endangered local workers from Kabul to safety. 18 human lives, and it could have been hundreds more if our rescue operation had not been actively blocked by the Foreign Office,” said a statement published on Sunday Website of the civil society initiative was disseminated. The federal government rejected the criticism. In the meantime, the rescue is said to have been successful.
With the help of donations, the rescue mission had sent a charter plane – an old Airbus 300 – to Kabul to fly around 170 people at risk – primarily Afghan employees of the German media. “We had safe accommodation for hundreds of people, we officially registered them on lists of the Foreign Office and had them approved, organized a bus transport via the Qatari embassy and could have brought people to the airport and onto our plane within a few hours,” said the initiative . The federal government “refused to write an email clearing the transport,” it said. The German authorities on site had repeatedly obstructed and delayed the rescue mission, although the flight and the passenger lists had been authorized and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) had personally advocated this.
“Airlift”: Events leave you speechless
The initiators declare that the experience leaves one speechless and angry and shows a “bureaucratic and political prevention tactic”. And: “It was publicly claimed that the plane was welcome, but after landing on site it was clear: Our plane should not evacuate people. When Portugal gratefully accepted our evacuation offer for its Afghan local staff, German diplomats apparently tried to force the plane to leave nobody evacuated. ” Above all, questions raise that the local authorities are obviously not following the instructions of the minister.
The federal government rejected the allegations as unjustified and referred to chaos and dangers in Kabul as well as blockades at control posts of the Taliban, which had made access to the airport more difficult in the past few days. With reference to the charter aircraft, it was explained that free seating capacity was never the bottleneck of the evacuation, but the safe transport of those in need of protection to the airport in the Afghan capital. According to its own account, the initiative organized this transport itself. Otherwise, the attempted evacuation flight did not use any or hardly any official German resources.
Happy ending without German coordination
For those left behind by the “airlift” flight, there could have been a happy ending in the meantime – now without the coordination of official German agencies. the bus convoy organized by the initiative with 189 people on board reached Kabul airport shortly after midnight. This succeeded as part of a US convoy with Qatari support. According to a report by the DPA news agency, they are likely to be among the more than 300 people in need of protection who were flown out last night – after the German evacuation flights ceased.
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