Officials said on Tuesday (August 10) that although the Taliban is accelerating, six European Union countries have called on the European Commission not to stop the deportation of Afghan immigrants.
The governments of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands wrote to EU executive agencies that if their asylum applications fail, they should be allowed to deport Afghan immigrants.
As security forces fought the Taliban offensive before the full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan on August 31, Afghanistan in July urged the European Union to stop the forced deportation of Afghan immigrants for three months.
Their letter requested the European Commission to “intensify dialogue with Afghan partners on all pressing immigration issues, including rapid and effective return cooperation”.
“Furthermore, the cessation of return sends the wrong signal, which may prompt more Afghan citizens to leave their homes for the European Union,” said the letter sent on August 5 seen by AFP.
The Belgian Immigration Minister Sammy Mahdi confirmed the content of the letter on Twitter, adding: “Just because the area of a country is dangerous does not mean that everyone from that country has Rights are protected.”
The Dutch Ministry of Justice also confirmed that it has asked Brussels not to suspend forced deportations, adding that it “is closely monitoring developments in Afghanistan.”
The Danish Minister of Immigration, Mattias Tesfaye, said that he was “happy” that the six countries agreed on this issue.
“It is important for the government to send failed asylum seekers to their own country,” he said in a statement issued after the letter was sent out late last week.
However, a senior EU official said that since the Afghan authorities have notified Brussels that Kabul will suspend its forced repatriation operations for three months, it is unlikely to continue.
The official said: “Obviously, given the current situation, I don’t think that forced repatriation will actually happen.”
The official said that so far this year, 1,200 people have returned to Afghanistan from the European Union — 1,000 of them were “voluntary” and 200 were “forced”.
After a blitz in northern Afghanistan forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes, the Taliban took control of seven provincial capitals in Afghanistan.
Following the 2001 invasion that overthrew the Taliban after the September 11 attacks, the United States left the battlefield almost before the end of its longest war month.
After Kabul issued an appeal to EU countries on July 11, Sweden and Finland stopped their forced deportations from Afghanistan.
According to EU statistics, Afghans accounted for 10.6% of EU asylum seekers in 2020, slightly more than 44,000 out of approximately 416,000 applications, second only to Syrians, accounting for 15.2%.
A senior EU official said on Tuesday that about 400,000 Afghans have been internally displaced by the conflict in recent months, and the number of people fleeing to Iran has increased in the past 10 days.
In a briefing to reporters in Brussels, the official added that due to continued fighting between government forces and the resurrected Taliban, it has become increasingly difficult to provide humanitarian assistance in the country.
