The German government has admitted that a number of Afghans who were due to be airlifted out of Afghanistan died before they could be evacuated to Germany. They had worked for the German forces and had been offered safety in Germany following the Taliban takeover.
The government said on Monday that it was "aware of individual deaths," of former local staff, relatives and other vulnerable people who had been due to be airlifted out of Afghanistan, according to a report in the German news magazine Spiegel.
The statement came in response to a question in Parliament from Clara Bünger, an MP with the far-left party Die Linke, about the federal government’s plans for the thousands of Afghans still waiting to be brought to Germany. In reply the government said that by mid-February it had guaranteed admission to around 30,000 people. So far, however, only around 14,000 of them have been able to enter Germany.
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Evacuations 'too late, too bureaucratic'
When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan last August, NATO forces managed to airlift large numbers of people to safety abroad. The then German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, promised that his government would continue to work until "all those for whom we are responsible in Afghanistan are in safety."
In reality, thousands of Afghans were left behind, leading to criticism of the way the evacuations were handled. In particular, many people were angry at the sudden closure on August 31 of the so-called 'human rights list' which included Afghans who were eligible to be flown to safety. While the government did not provide any more details about the exact number or the circumstances of those people who died, it seems that they had been on an 'accepted' list, according to Spiegel.
"We now know that the indescribable failure of the federal government has already had fatal consequences," Clara Bünger told the magazine.
"It's almost unbearable to imagine that Afghans who trusted in the protection of Germany fell victim to the Taliban because, despite strong warnings, evacuations started too late and procedures were too bureaucratic," she said.