Enlarge image
German evacuation flight in August 2021: "Criminal failure"
Photo:
Marc Tessensohn / dpa
When the Taliban took power in Kabul in August 2021, chaos reigned in the federal government: Lists were hastily compiled and plans for the evacuation of people who had helped the Bundeswehr in their mission – and who could now be targeted by the Taliban, were made.
The last German evacuation plane took off at the end of August, and since then the Afghans have had to leave the country on their own.
Now the federal government has to admit for the first time that dozens of people who were supposed to be evacuated are already dead.
Since the Taliban took power, 32 former local staff, people who were particularly at risk for other reasons, or family members have died while they were waiting for Germany to take them in.
This emerges from the response of the federal government to a request from the left-wing member of the Bundestag Clara Bünger, which is available to SPIEGEL.
Ortskraft committed suicide
In its response, the federal government lists the causes of the Afghans' deaths in detail.
According to this, 15 people died of natural causes or in an accident.
Nine were violently killed: a local worker died in an IS attack on a mosque, a family member of a particularly vulnerable person died in an attack in front of a passport authority.
A relative of a local worker was killed because he was once a member of the Afghan armed forces.
The cause of death is unclear for seven people, and one local employee committed suicide.
According to the federal government, none of the deaths had a connection with the work for the Germans.
Left MP Bünger calls the balance sheet a “disaster”.
The old government failed miserably in getting people at risk out of Afghanistan in time, she tells SPIEGEL.
"And the new government hasn't even managed to secure at least those who have been accepted."
According to its own statements, the federal government has so far promised 23,666 local workers and family members a place in the country.
Of them, 21,396 made it to Germany.
The balance is worse for those who are on another list of people who are particularly at risk.
They list 11,681 people, including human rights activists, journalists and their families.
Of them, only 6513 made it to Germany - just over half.
Missing passports make exit difficult
Most Afghans leave via Pakistan or Iran.
In order to leave the country, they usually need a passport, and the Taliban have banned people from leaving the country with an Afghan identity card.
However, it is estimated in Berlin that not even half of the families who have been accepted are fully equipped with passports.
The German government is therefore trying to reach a deal with the Pakistani authorities: After mediation by the Germans, they repeatedly allowed Afghans to enter the country who could only show an ID card.
This is how more than 6000 refugees got out of the country.
The federal government announced in early summer that it would give the admissions program new impetus.
Originally, the intention was to bring up to 7,000 Afghans who were eligible to come to Germany by September.
So far, however, the plans have failed because those in need of protection cannot travel to one of the neighboring countries and fly on to Germany from there due to increasingly strict controls by the Taliban.
In addition, the implementation of a new online tool that the Federal Foreign Office is having developed is stalling.
