Almost 400 people from Afghanistan are already safe on Mexican soil. This Tuesday a new group of Afghan citizens, made up of 175 social media workers, activists, journalists and their families, including 75 minors, landed at Terminal 1 of the Mexico City International Airport, according to a government statement. It is the fourth group to arrive in the country since Kabul, the capital of the Asian country, fell to the Taliban militias on August 15. The rescue operation, coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior and different entities of the Federal Government, has been carried out with the collaboration of the Egyptian Government and the Mexican embassies in Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.The trip was the first flight in the history of the Egypt Air company to Mexico.
Before that, three groups of Afghan exiles had already arrived in the country. The first, made up of five women from the
Afghan Dreamers Team
robotics
team
, internationally known for manufacturing ventilators for COVID-19 patients from car parts, landed on August 24. Just a few hours later, a new plane arrived from Qatar carrying 124 people, including minors. Among them were workers from the American newspaper
The New York Times
. Two days ago, on August 19, the third group arrived in Mexico City from Qatar and the United Kingdom, made up of 86 people, some of them collaborators of the American
outlet The Wall Street Journal
.
📸 A fourth group of Afghan nationals landed at @AICM_mx, from Egypt.
This is made up of 175 people.
Mexico🇲🇽 reinforces its diplomatic tradition in adherence to its foreign policy principles.
We give you the warmest welcome to our country.
pic.twitter.com/8Crw7P1fbi
- Foreign Relations (@SRE_mx) September 1, 2021
They have not been the only ones to request humanitarian protection from the Mexican State.
More groups of Afghan citizens are expected to arrive in the country in the coming days.
In addition, at the moment, there are several files that are being analyzed, although the Foreign Ministry has not released the official number of petitions.
The 390 Afghan citizens have been received in Mexico for "humanitarian reasons", although it is not yet clear if all of them will receive refugee status.
At this moment, they are housed in reception facilities set up by private organizations, which prefer not to be identified for security reasons, a source from the Foreign Ministry told this newspaper.
The costs of transportation and food have been paid by "private sponsors and civil society organizations," according to the statement.
MORE INFORMATION
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Two decades of change: how Afghanistan evolved after the overthrow of the Taliban
Guillermo Ordorica, Mexican ambassador to Iran, "the first face of Mexico in Afghanistan", has assured together with a local worker from the embassy that his team has been monitoring the Taliban advance since the beginning of the year, in a video posted on Twitter by the Ministry of Foreign Relations.
"We were not surprised by what is happening because the situation is deteriorating, the surprise has been the collapse of the [Afghan] government in 24 hours."
▶ ️ The ambassador of Mexico🇲🇽 in Iran🇮🇷, concurrent in Afghanistan, Guillermo @OrdoricaPuente, and the local employee of @EmbaMexIrn, Rosalin Arzumanians, report the efforts made for Afghans from the Embassy, ​​in accordance with our diplomatic tradition.
pic.twitter.com/3pe3tT2SJB
- Foreign Relations (@SRE_mx) September 1, 2021
With the fall of Kabul, the Mexican embassy in Iran created a working group “basically made up of women”, with the aim of “offering asylum and refuge for humanitarian reasons to as many Afghans as we could”. "We have worked with great dedication to try to carry out this enormous humanitarian effort, in keeping with our diplomatic tradition in this matter," defended Ordorica.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has already warned that more than half a million refugees could leave Afghanistan before the end of the year. A figure that is added to the more than two million Afghans who, before the current crisis, had already fled the country, distributed mainly between Pakistan (1.5 million), Iran (780,000) and Germany (180,000), although also They are found in Turkey, Greece, and other European and Asian countries.
Since the United States announced last March the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of war, the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist militia, have carried out a lightning offensive to regain control of the territory. His arrival in the capital, Kabul, on August 15, was the decisive move that sentenced the military operation. The last US troops left the Central Asian country on Monday, ending the longest war waged by the US power.
The exit, between terrorist attacks that have claimed the lives of more than a hundred people, has been strongly criticized by NGOs and different international organizations, who accuse President Joe Biden of leaving behind thousands of collaborators and potentially vulnerable citizens to the retaliation from the Taliban.
The Afghan population now fears that, with the Taliban in power, the country will suffer a decline in social and political rights, especially for women, as it did from 1996 to 2001, under the last government of the insurgents.
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