Afghanistan: Fifteen EU countries pledge to receive 40,000 refugees

Germany and 14 other European Union member states have pledged to host some 40,000 Afghans, European Home Affairs Commissioner Elva Johansson said yesterday after meeting with the 27 interior ministers.

“Fifteen EU Member States have pledged to provide protection to almost 40,000 Afghans. This, together with the best measures to tackle irregular migration, is the way forward for the implementation of the EU’s immigration and asylum policy,” he said. Mrs. Johansson via Twitter, using the #MigrationEU tag.

According to a letter from the commissioner to the interior ministers of the participating countries, Germany alone intends to receive 25,000 refugees from Afghanistan.

According to the European Commission, these 15 Member States have already evacuated some 28,000 people from Afghanistan in recent months. The 40,000 in question will be added to this number. According to Ms. Johnson’s letter, there are 38,146 people.

The letter, which came to the knowledge of the German Agency, refers to the almost 60,000 applications that have been accepted by EU countries in 2021 and 2022.

However, this number is not limited to Afghanistan. About two-thirds of the 60,000 applications were filed by Afghans in need of protection, the commissioner said.

When the fundamentalist Taliban took power in Kabul on August 15, EU member states decided not to make any commitment to accept refugees from Afghanistan, so as not to create, as they put it, an incentive to increase illegal immigration.

The situation in Afghanistan is now dramatic. The country is facing one of the worst droughts in two decades. The economy, already in a bad state before the Taliban came to power, is in free fall.

According to United Nations estimates, more than half of Afghanistan’s population is unable to provide enough food.

SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ