Delays in resettling Afghans ‘inexcusable’

A FORMER general has said the Government should be “deeply ashamed” for abandoning hundreds of Afghans eligible for resettlement to the mercy of the Taliban.

Gen Sir John Mccoll said Britain’s schemes were not fit for purpose and there were “inexcusable delays” in processing applications.

MOD figures show just 9,000 Afghans and their dependants have come to Britain in the Afghan Relocations and Assistant Policy (ARAP) scheme since April last year. James Heappey, the Armed Forces minister, said two weeks ago that an estimated 1,000 Afghans with “confirmed eligibility” were stuck in the country along with their family members.

Gen Mccoll, now retired, became the UK’S special envoy to Afghanistan in 2005, and was the deputy supreme allied commander in Europe for Nato from 2007 to 2011.

He said delays had been “going on over nine months” and there was no system “adequate to deal with the number and complexity of the applications”. He told the BBC: “There is absolutely no reason why the Government doesn’t have that in place.”

Ed Aitken, co-founder of the Sulha Alliance charity and former captain with the Royal Lancers, said interpreters’ families were being “systematically hunted down by the Taliban”. The charity helps rescue former interpreters with the Army from Afghanistan.

Christropher Hicks, a former Lance Bombardier whose interpreter is hiding in Kabul with his family despite having been approved for asylum, called government efforts “absolutely disgusting”.

He said: “The Home Office has been in touch with [the interpreter] but is no longer relaying anything to him.”

A spokesman for the MOD said: “Since the ARAP scheme began, we have relocated over 9,000 applicants and their dependants to the UK. This scheme remains open and is not time limited, and we are progressing applications as quickly as possible.”