The federal government has promised to help vulnerable Afghan employees of the German media and to accept them in Germany. Now the German authorities are sneaking out of responsibility. As in the case of the one already saved stern-Employee Rasool Sekandari, who was brought to the USA from Germany against his will this morning.
Steffen Gassel
At last his voice sounded weak. “We’re on the plane,” said Rasool Sekandari, and sent the voice message to stern. “We’re flying now. The Americans say we’re starting. I can’t stay here. It’s taking too long. My children are coughing. The night was cold. Is there anything else from the German Ministry?”
We from stern could only tell him: “Nothing new from the German ministries.” For almost two weeks we tried to get him and his family out of the US Airforce Base Ramstein in the Palatinate. One ministry shifted responsibility onto the other – even though the family had written permission to stay in Germany. The letter from the Foreign Office said: “Travelers are allowed to enter and stay on the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany.”
Now that we write these lines, Rasool Sekandari, his wife and three young children are on the plane on their way to the United States. “What am I supposed to do?” He had said.
“The Taliban go door to door”
Rasool had worked for German companies in Afghanistan, as a driver, as a translator, as a researcher, as an expert on the situation. For the stern, for the Reconstruction Loan Corporation. He had letters and confirmations. He was already on German territory in the Palatinate, in Ramstein near Landstuhl. We were ready to pick him up.
“We wait for him every day,” says his brother-in-law Mujtaba. “We have prepared everything for the family. Rasool has two sisters in Frankfurt. My brother has a house in Limburg. There is room for the family. We are ready to settle in.” Mujtaba himself has been in Germany for seven years, he works in a restaurant and has mastered the leap into the new world well.
The way for the Sekandari family was long. Four weeks ago, Rasool had to hide in Kabul and sent desperate messages to him stern. “I went into hiding with my cousin. The Taliban go door to door.”
Rasool had helped us with delicate projects. Once it was about the meeting with a Taliban in Kunduz who had fought in a battle against Bundeswehr soldiers. Another time about a visit to the American General McChrystal in Kabul. Above all, a report about a family who had expressed criticism of the Taliban.
Between hope and despair
Rasool and his family came on the list of the “Kabul Airlift”, a private German evacuation initiative to free journalists, translators and researchers from Afghanistan. At the same time, we left him, his family and other freelancers in the stern register with their relatives as persons in need of protection on the evacuation list of the Federal Foreign Office. On August 22nd, Rasool received an official Laissez-Passer letter for himself, his wife and three children to enter Germany, i.e. the official entry permit from the Foreign Office. Then their odyssey began.
First through Kabul on the way to the airport. They were stuck for hours, they were checked three times at the Taliban checkpoints, three times they came through and also through the crowds that were pushing them onto the premises. Finally, after a night in a cousin’s car, they reached the airfield. “We did it,” he said happily in a voice message. It sounded like salvation.
We’ve sent each other dozens of voice messages over the past few weeks. They always oscillated between hope and despair.
The Sekandaris were then stuck at Kabul Airport for more than 24 hours. Sat in the shade of a machine whose wings gave them some shade at temperatures close to 40 degrees. Slept on the tarmac. Hoped for a machine, some one that would bring them out. It was Qatar, Frankfurt, Uzbekistan. The Foreign Office confirmed that our urgent request to take the family into German care had been passed on to the Bundeswehr, which was still present at Kabul Airport at the time. But the Sekandaris never saw a German soldier there. The children were left with no food or drink and were left with their nerves. You were about to go home. “I can’t take it anymore,” said Rasool.
Eventually the Sekandaris got on a Qatari charter plane. And after three days he finally answered: Doha, Qatar. Safe. In a camp on the US base there, al-Udaid. He sent another photo from the camp. Then the contact was broken again for two days.
Finally, a new, relieving message: “Done. We’re in Germany. Rammstein. The Air Base.” That was the Thursday before last. 13 days ago.
It could only be a matter of hours now, thought Rasool, a maximum of days to begin the new life in Germany. But Rasool was wrong. It was weeks. Nothing came of it.
The rescued were flown to the USA
This morning the Americans flew him and his family along with other refugees from Ramstein to the USA. They’re their refugees, they argue, at least as long as the Germans don’t claim them for themselves. In addition, the US Army is apparently in the word with the Germans. According to information from Erik Marquardt, a co-initiator of the “Kabul Airlift” and a member of the Greens in the European Parliament, the federal government has given the Americans permission to use Ramstein as a hub for the evacuation mission from Afghanistan, subject to one condition: a maximum of ten days should the evacuees stay there. Then they should be flown out again.
The German authorities should therefore be aware that the longer they postpone processing the cases, the higher the probability that those rescued will also be brought to the USA who Germany had promised admission. And all of this under the eyes of the German Armed Forces and the Federal Police, who are present with their own forces on the US base in Ramstein.
We contacted the Foreign Office several times, which had issued the entry permit for the Sekandaris. But Heiko Maas’ foreign office referred to the interior ministry. It was said that a confirmation of admission had to be given there. In Horst Seehofer’s office, however, when it comes to the rescued Afghans, service is pushed according to regulations. The Ministry of the Interior apparently argues that before action can be taken, a list of all Afghan citizens in need of protection from the Foreign Office must first be drawn up – the number is likely to be in the tens of thousands.
The Ministry of the Interior has apparently not been able to carry out a case-by-case examination for the few, particularly endangered people like Rasool Sekandari, who have already been rescued from Afghanistan apart from the Bundeswehr Airlift. Although there are hardly more than 200 people at stake. “The Federal Ministry of the Interior apparently wants as many of the rescued Afghans to come to the USA – regardless of what Germany has promised them,” says Green Party politician Marquardt. “In public the Federal Government presents itself as a Samaritan. But when it comes to practical implementation, you only run into problems.”
Some of the “other wards”, as the rescued Afghans are called in official German, meanwhile, are still waiting in Ramstein, another group of around 65 people, including three stern-Stringer and ten relatives have been stuck on a US naval base in Rota, Spain, for days after being evacuated by the Americans from Kabul. And should go after stern-Information will be flown from there to the USA tomorrow. Although all these people had received the approval of the Foreign Office before the rescue from Kabul: You can come to Germany. Like the Sekandari family. All but one have stern-People in Rota, relatives in Germany who are ready to take them in – like the Sekandaris.
After four weeks of flight, the forces waned
The longer our efforts with the responsible German authorities in favor of the rescued, the more solid our impression became: Nobody wants to talk about new refugees coming to Germany in the election campaign.
In Rammstein, the Sekandaris held out day after day. For 13 days. The nights grew chilly, the children had severe coughs, you could hear it on the voice messages in the background. The sister fought for her, as did her brother-in-law, only about 100 kilometers away in Frankfurt, but even they couldn’t get the family out of Ramstein. “It’s Germany after all,” says Mujtaba, the brother-in-law, incredulous. “Why don’t you come out of Germany to Germany?”
“The most important thing is: you are safe,” we told Rasool over and over again.
“That’s right,” he said.
But the strength dwindled. Four weeks on the run. Constantly in tents. A jumble of authorities. Scared children. So now the Sekandaris are on their way to Washington. “I’ll send you a message,” he said at the end. “Maybe then we can make it from Washington to Germany.”
That would be almost 30,000 kilometers. From Kabul via Qatar via Germany via the USA to Germany.
We stay tuned.
stern– Editor-in-chief Anna-Beeke Gretemeier says about the latest developments: “Not only that the federal government was of no help when it came to getting our people out of Afghanistan. Even when it was finally possible to get the endangered families over various airlifts of other governments The German authorities have failed to bring organizations out of the Taliban’s sphere of influence they wanted to record in German cities. Instead, there was an unparalleled bureaucratic chaos, every official body pushed the problem further. One can only hope that the current federal election campaign has nothing to do with this irresponsible debacle. “
This morning we asked both the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Foreign Office for statements on the Sekandari case. From circles of the Foreign Office it was announced to the stern: “The Federal Government has given the list of the airlift an admission, which is valid. We passed on all information several times to the competent authorities in order to initiate immigration procedures in Ramstein.”
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