“We've got a very short window of time in terms of what we can do for those on the ground in Afghanistan who face real threats,” added Mohammadi, who is now based in Australia but still has family in Afghanistan. “The fears are very real they are very genuine at the moment,” Sitarah Mohammadi, deputy chair of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN) and a former Hazara refugee from Afghanistan, told The New Humanitarian. Many employees of the collapsed Afghan government, members of civil society, and women have gone into hiding. Read more: Why these Afghan women are speaking out Since taking power, the Taliban has pledged not to carry out reprisals, but reports are already emerging from around the country of homes being searched and people being detained, disappeared, and even executed.Īmnesty International released a report on 19 August documenting a Taliban massacre in July of nine men from the long-persecuted Hazara ethnic minority group, underlining concerns that the brutality that marked the Taliban’s rule in the 1990s may soon return. A Taliban spokesperson said Afghans who have passports and visas will be able to leave “in a dignified manner” when commercial flights resume. The US and other NATO countries say they have received assurances from the Taliban that Afghans who worked with them, and others who are at risk, will continue to be allowed to leave the country after Western troops complete their withdrawal. But hundreds of thousands more who fear retribution because of their ties to the US and NATO presence in the country – or because they belong to groups the Taliban have targeted in the past – are potentially being left behind.
Since 14 August, more than 113,000 people – mostly Afghans – have been evacuated from the Kabul airport by a multinational effort. Hundreds of thousands have been internally displaced since the US began its pullout in May. On 27 August, the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, said up to half a million Afghans could flee across land borders by the end of the year in a “worst-case scenario”. There is also uncertainty surrounding how effectively international aid organisations will be able to continue addressing the needs of vulnerable Afghans. The effects of a severe drought, a slumping economy, the COVID-19 pandemic, and intensifying conflict during the first eight months of the year were already pushing people to leave their homes – and the country – and will likely only be exacerbated by the transition to a Taliban government.
“Even before the really rapidly evolving situation in the last couple of weeks with the Taliban takeover, we were already talking about sort of a perfect storm brewing in Afghanistan,” Bram Frouws, head of the Mixed Migration Centre, told The New Humanitarian. As evacuation efforts at Kabul International Airport wind down ahead of the 31 August deadline for the withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan, pressing questions remain about whether and where those fearful of Taliban rule – or looking to escape the country’s overlapping humanitarian crises – will be able to find safe haven.
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