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Bundeswehr airlift from Kabul: only 30 local troops on board
Photo:
Marc Tessensohn / dpa
The federal government is making slow progress in rescuing endangered local forces of the Bundeswehr and other German institutions from Afghanistan.
In a list for left-wing MP Sevim Dagdelen, the Ministry of the Interior has now admitted that a total of 3813 local workers are still waiting to leave.
The paper is available to SPIEGEL.
After the Taliban came to power on August 15, the German government promised to make intensive efforts to get the Afghan aid workers out of the country because they fear the revenge of the new regime because of their work for German institutions.
According to the list, there are at least 645 Afghan local staff in Afghanistan who have worked for the Bundeswehr in recent years.
In addition, 745 former helpers from the Foreign Office and 23 Afghans, who were active for the interior department, for example in training programs for the local security authorities, are waiting to leave for Germany.
The largest group of local staff, around 2,400 Afghans in total, were deployed in projects of the development aid department.
Before the Taliban came to power, the ministry had long resisted generous travel options for local aid workers and repeatedly delayed the process within the federal government.
The argument that was always given was that the helpers were still needed in Afghanistan.
Based on the numbers now presented, it is clear that the departure of local personnel after the rescue mission of the Bundeswehr has ended at the end of August is progressing more than sluggishly.
Since the last Bundeswehr flight on August 26th to November 7th, only 456 local workers have entered Germany, according to the paper from the interior department.
However, this figure also includes many local employees who were brought in from Afghanistan by private initiatives such as the “Kabul Airlift” and then mostly traveled on to Germany via Pakistan.
The organization has already brought hundreds of Afghans to neighboring countries in bus convoys, including many local workers.
The former helpers of the Bundeswehr are particularly at risk because of their work for the military.
It is true that the Bundeswehr rescued more than 5,000 people from Afghanistan with military aircraft from August 16 to 26.
According to SPIEGEL information, these included only around 30 local armed forces with their closest family members.
"Tough, intensive coordination, not very transparent"
In the meantime, disappointment is spreading in the troops that nothing more is being done for the former helpers of the Bundeswehr.
In an internal memo for the acting minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, it is said that the mission to protect local workers is "falling short of political and public expectations."
The procedure previously carried out by the Foreign Office is "tough, intensive coordination, sometimes not very transparent and frictional."
In the months before the Taliban came to power, Kramp-Karrenbauer had already campaigned intensively for the local armed forces and demanded unbureaucratic help.
She also asked the Chancellor for help several times in order to put pressure on the other departments active in Afghanistan, but they continued to be stubborn.
Although the CDU politician only has a few days left in office, she continues to urge the process to be accelerated.
Internally, she has already had plans drawn up for a cross-departmental operational operations center in which all departments are to work.
She also intends to use her inspector general as the highest-ranking military officer as a special representative for the Afghan troops.
It is uncertain whether the plans will be implemented before their ministry is handed over to a successor.
Since the end of the military evacuation mission, the Federal Foreign Office has been working with a task force to bring more local staff from the various departments out of Afghanistan.
However, so far it has only been possible to fly a large number of those in need of protection to Pakistan in a charter plane in mid-November.
The task force is working under high pressure on further flights, but the organization is more than difficult, according to the ministry.
The leftist Dagdelen criticized the federal government for the numbers now presented.
"After the defeat of NATO in the grueling Afghanistan war and the days of chaos during the withdrawal of troops, the federal government unscrupulously abandoned the local staff despite the promised evacuation," said Dagdelen.
She described the procedure as "simply brutal".