Have the Foreign Office and the Ministry of the Interior actively blocked the evacuation of Afghan local staff through a private rescue initiative? The «Kabul Airlift» raises serious allegations.
The Kabul Airlift Rescue Initiative has reiterated its allegations against the German government for a lack of support and massive resistance to private evacuation flights for people in need of protection from Afghanistan.
“The real mother of all problems in connection with this evacuation mission is without a doubt the Federal Ministry of the Interior,” said co-initiator Ruben Neugebauer on Wednesday in Berlin. There was “simply a lack of political will” to save as many people as possible from Afghanistan.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior rejected the criticism. The ministry’s spokesman, Steve Alter, told the German Press Agency that the ministry had no prior knowledge of the planned flight.
The rescue mission, consisting of activists, non-governmental organizations and refugee initiatives, had sent a privately organized and donated charter plane to Kabul. The mission cost a total of 350,000 euros, at the end of which only 18 endangered local workers were brought to safety with “immense effort” – “and it could have been hundreds more”, according to the initiators. Thanks mainly to the support of British and American troops, the project was still successful in the end.
According to the most active people, the Federal Foreign Office and the Ministry of the Interior have “actively blocked” the action. The experience made one speechless and angry and showed a “bureaucratic and political prevention tactic,” declared the initiators. “The impression arises that they no longer wanted to have the debate here before the general election, but in the end they probably walked over corpses,” said Neugebauer. “You would have had the time and you would have had the opportunity to get people out of there in time.”
The Foreign Office again rejected allegations on Wednesday and warned against simplifications in the description of a situation in Kabul, which was very complicated. The ministry has supported the project in many ways and – contrary to what has been shown – also sent an allegedly unsent email, said a spokesman on Wednesday. The idea that such an operation, planned for days, could be called off because of an email, “really does not correspond to the realities of such a situation”. There was no refusal and no blockade. However, it was made clear to the initiative from the outset that capacities for on-site help were limited – due to the ongoing state evacuation operation.
The initiative reiterated its demands for safe escape routes, unbureaucratic airlifts from neighboring countries as well as an opening of the evacuation lists and a “Visa upon Arrival” procedure, i.e. the issuing of a visa after arrival in Germany. This is the only way to get out of Afghanistan self-organized, said Neugebauer.
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