500,000 migrants heading to Europe from Afghanistan
MORE than half a million Afghan migrants have crossed the border since the fall of Kabul last year and are heading for Europe and the Channel coast, intelligence experts have warned Ministers.
Priti Patel last week held an emergency summit with her counterparts in the international Five Eyes intelligence alliance to discuss how to track the exodus.
The Home Secretary is also seeking to toughen the UK’s response to migrants who cross the Channel, with Border Force teams moving between hotels in Britain to round up migrants and move them to holding centres on military bases.
The Five Eyes group – comprising the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand – combines the resources of MI6, GCHQ, the CIA
‘Serious problems if we do not get a grip now’
and the other nations’ domestic intelligence agencies, and can be traced back to the informal meetings between American and UK code-breakers during the Second World War.
The 500,000 migrants displaced by political turmoil arising from the Taliban takeover and a famine in Afghanistan this winter is in addition to the 2.6 million existing Afghan refugees around the world. Of those, around 2.2 million are in Iran and Pakistan with a further 3.5 million people displaced within Afghanistan itself.
One area of concern is the potential weaponisation of Afghan refugees by Belarus, which is said to actively ‘importing’ migrants and encouraging them to cross into the EU via Poland and Lithuania.
‘The Afghan situation is going to cause serious problems over the coming months if we do not get a grip now,’ said a Government source. ‘A big part of the problem is the Schengen open borders system which allows them to pass freely across the EU until they reach Calais. MI6 and GCHQ are at the forefront of international efforts to keep on top of it.’
The United Nations last year said a worst-case scenario was that 500,000 refugees could flee Afghanistan following the US-led withdrawal from the country. Around 12,000 Afghan refugees are currently living in UK hotels, with permanent homes so far found for more than 4,000.
The Government has faced acute embarrassment over its failure to stem illegal migration on small boats across the Channel.
More than 28,000 migrants used the route last year – triple the number recorded in 2020. A further 1,341 successfully made the journey last month, and it was recently reported that the Army is to begin building camps on Ministry of Defence land to house up to 30,000 Channel migrants.
The Government has been criticised over conditions at the Napier barracks in Folkestone, where up to 350 asylum seekers have been housed since September 2020.
Officials hope the new but more spartan accommodation on MoD premises – rather than the comforts of hotels – will act as a disincentive to migrants to travel to the UK. But Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: ‘People have always been given a fair hearing on British soil to ensure those who need protection are given it and those who don’t are returned.
‘We must do the same today and have an asylum system that is both orderly and fair, treating people with respect and compassion rather than seeking to criminalise or hold people, often already very traumatised, in military-style camps.’