Hundreds of Afghans are “trapped” abroad diplomats, after their seizure of power in the country Taliban. The diplomats are left without money to continue to support the missions, fearing for the fate of their families at home and in despair in trying to secure refuge abroad.
The militant Islamist movement, which quickly ousted its Western-backed government Afghanistan On August 15, it announced on Tuesday that it had sent messages to all its embassies urging diplomats to continue their work.
But eight embassy staffers who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity in countries including Canada, Germany and Japan spoke of malfunction and despair in their missions. “My colleagues here and in many countries beg the countries that host them to accept them“, Says an Afghan diplomat in Berlin, explaining that he is afraid of what might happen to him, his wife and his four daughters who remain in Kabul if he allows his name to be used. «I literally beg. “The diplomats intend to become refugees,” he said, according to the Athens News Agency, adding that he would have to sell everything – including a large house in Kabul – and “start from scratch”.
Afghanistan’s missions abroad are going through a period of “prolonged uncertainty” as countries decide whether to recognize the Taliban, said Afzal Ashraf, an international relations expert and visiting professor at the University of Nottingham in Britain.
“What can these embassies do? They do not represent a government. “They do not have a policy to implement,” he said, adding that embassy staff may have sought political asylum due to security concerns if he returned to Afghanistan.
Message to diplomats to continue their work – “We have no money”
Messages have been sent to all Afghan embassies Taliban calling them diplomats to continue their work, said the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan, Amir Khan Mutaki. “Afghanistan has invested a lot in you, you are capital for Afghanistan,” he said
A senior Afghan diplomat estimates that there are about 3,000 people who either work in the country’s embassies or are directly dependent on them.
The government of ousted President Ashraf Ghani also sent a letter to foreign diplomatic missions on September 8 calling the new Taliban government “illegal” and urging embassies to “resume normal operations and fulfill their obligations.”
But these calls do not reflect the chaos that prevails, diplomats say. “There is no money. It is not possible to operate in such conditions. “I am not being paid now,” said a source at the Afghan embassy in the Canadian capital, Ottawa.
Two Afghan embassy officials in New Delhi also said there was no money for a diplomatic mission serving thousands of Afghans looking for ways to return home and reunite with their families or for Afghans in need of help. asylum in other countries.
They both explained that they would not return to Afghanistan from fear that they may be targeted because of their connections to the previous government, but will struggle to get asylum in India, where thousands of Afghans have spent years seeking refugee asylum.
“At the moment I can only stay at the embassy premises and wait to get out of here which country intends to receive me and my family,” says one of them.
“No diplomat is going to return”
«It is very clear that not a single Afghan diplomat serving abroad wants to return. “We are all determined to stay where we are and maybe many countries will accept that we belong to an exiled government,” said a senior Afghan diplomat in Japan.
In fact, some of Afghanistan’s ambassadors have openly criticized the Taliban.
Mahiza Baktari, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Austria, regularly posts on Twitter accusations of human rights abuses by the Taliban, while the country’s envoy to China, Javid Ahmad Kaem, warns that the promises are false.
Others keep a low profile in the hope that the countries they serve in will not rush to recognize the Taliban government and put them in danger.
Many Afghan diplomats say they will be following closely the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York next week, where it is uncertain who will be based in Afghanistan.
Accreditation at the United Nations gives prestige to a government and so far no one has formally claimed Afghanistan’s seat.
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