‘There are many of us in serious danger. There should have been a plan B’
Interpreters, journalists and dual nationals stranded in Afghanistan vent their anger at Britain
‘There is a number you can ring. But then they put on the music and you’ll be waiting for hours’
LAST Wednesday Iqbal, a former Nato military interpreter who worked for 10 years alongside coalition forces in Afghanistan, received the call he had been praying for. After days in hiding from the Taliban while former colleagues in the British, French and US armies tried to get him on an evacuation flight, he had finally been cleared. All he had to do was show up with his family at Kabul Airport that night to be processed and ushered on to a French military aircraft.
“The Taliban were stopping everyone and telling them to go back. They told people the gate is closed. And they were also beating people,” he said by telephone from a hiding place in Kabul. “That was when I realised it was impossible. Since then I am in hiding and trying to limit my movements. I only go out for very important things and I am using different tactics to remain hidden,” he said.
“There are lots of people like me and we are in serious danger. My brother worked for the Americans supplying Bagram airfield. We are all in the same situation,” he said. “To be honest, I am disappointed. They should have had a plan B for us long ago.”
Iqbal, whose name has been changed for security reasons, is one of thousands of military interpreters, journalists, dual nationals and other vulnerable people who were left behind as the Kabul airlift wound down over the weekend.
Charities, human rights activists and informal networks of former soldiers lobbying for evacuations are exasperated at what they fear is the abandonment of tens of thousands of people.
“Very few interpreters got out. None of my veteran friends got their people out,” said Henry Mclouglin, a former captain in the French Marine infantry who spent two weeks liaising with fellow American and British veterans in an attempt to get former Afghan colleagues, including Iqbal, evacuated.
“It feels like we were told lies for 10 days. Fill out this form. Call this number. No one answers or picks up. We should have spent that time helping them hide or change cities or go to Pakistan, instead of telling them to call phone numbers that no one ever picked up.”
Those stranded are not only interpreters. Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, said that up to 1,100 Afghans eligible for the Ministry of Defence’s Arap relocation scheme were left behind when Operation Pitting, the UK evacuation effort, ended at the weekend.
Arap is a scheme for Afghan nationals, mostly military interpreters, who were employed by the British Govern
ment and were in danger as a result of their work.
The number does not include British dual nationals, former Afghan government officials, activists or journalists who were eligible for evacuation but could not make it to the airport.
A support network run by German soldiers said Germany left behind at least 5,000 former staff and families when it ended its airlift on Thursday.
Abdul Awal, a taxi driver from Ashford who was staying with his family in Kabul when the Taliban captured the city, said the British embassy had offered to evacuate them but that it proved impossible to reach the Baron hotel where the UK operation was being run from.
Mr Awal said he and his family were helpless to leave the country without Foreign Office assistance. He said he had heard nothing for days. “There is a number you can ring. But then they put on the music and you’ll be waiting for one, two, three hours. Nobody answers.”
British government advice is for those left behind to make their way to a third country where they will be processed at British diplomatic missions. Britain and France tabled a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council yesterday calling on the Taliban to live up to its guarantee of safe passage for those who wish to leave independently.
At the moment, that is largely impossible. There are no commercial flights operating and most land borders are closed. Pakistan wants to avoid a repeat of the refugee influx seen in the 1980s and 1990s when the country at one point took in five million Afghans.
The Pentagon said it was investigating reports that several civilians including at least three children were killed when a US drone strike hit a car carrying two suspected suicide bombers who intended to attack Kabul airport on Sunday. Asked about the reports yesterday, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said: “We are not in a position to dispute it right now.”
Relatives told The New York Times that the driver of the car was Zemari Ahmadi, who worked for the Nutrition and Education International, a US charity, and he was returning home from work. They said that the children ran out to greet his white Toyota Corolla when a missile hit it.
Mr Ahmadi’s daughter Samia, 21, said she had staggered out of the house to find the bodies. She said: “At first I thought it was the Taliban. But the Americans themselves did it. I saw the whole scene.”
Several hundred people continued to crowd around one entrance to the airport yesterday in the hope of getting on one of the final US flights, despite the danger of further rocket attacks.
“We have our documents finally, we want to see if we can make the last flights,” said the elderly father of a family of eight that spilled out of a yellow taxi there in the afternoon.
“There are rockets, yes, but we have already lost so much.”