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Afghan nationals who were promised resettlement in the UK almost a year ago are facing torture and death as they await a response from the British government. the observer can declare.
Not a single person has been accepted or evacuated from Afghanistan under the Home Office’s Afghan National Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), launched in January, prompting claims that ministers are displaying a “toxic combination of incompetence and apathy”. The scheme was intended to help Afghans working for or associated with the British government – including its embassy staff and British Council teachers – and all of whom faced serious harm at the hands of the Taliban.
Meanwhile, figures show just five to eight members are working on the scheme in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office – the department that runs ACRS – compared with 540 working on Ukraine schemes earlier this year. “There is no sense that Afghanistan is any kind of priority,” the sources said.
Britain’s efforts to evacuate dangerous Afghans were heavily criticized in the days after the fall of Kabul in August 2021 when it emerged that many who had worked for or with the UK had stayed behind. Under Taliban rule, poverty levels have risen in Afghanistan, women’s rights have been rolled back and the UN has recorded at least 160 extrajudicial killings.
Joint investigation through open source intelligence, insights from forensic doctors and interviews with more than a dozen Afghans awaiting relocation the observer And Lighthouse Reports, a non-profit newsroom based in the Netherlands, has verified that those whom the UK pledged to help under the ACRS were severely beaten and tortured by the Taliban.
In other cases, family members have been kidnapped, or died because Taliban fighters blocked access to medical care.
Batur, 32, a former university professor, started working for the British Council in 2019. During the Taliban takeover last year, he began receiving death threats and went into hiding, separated from his wife and two children. When Batur’s two-year-old daughter, Najwa, fell ill, his wife was forced to treat him at home because under Taliban law she was prohibited from traveling without a man accompanying her.
Najvani’s condition became very bad. By the time Batur managed to get her daughter to a pediatric hospital, it was too late. Najwa’s medical records state that she was suffering from acute hepatitis, septicemia and liver failure. It was later confirmed that the cause of death was cardiac arrest. “Those were dark days,” Batur said. “I couldn’t even go to the funeral. I couldn’t do anything. My wife still blames me because of who I worked for. I was not there with him during those difficult days. If I hadn’t been hiding, I could have helped … I was guilty.”
Six months after Najwa’s death, Batur was told by the British Council that his application for another resettlement scheme, the Afghan Migration and Assistance Policy (ARAP), would be “formally rejected” by the UK government and that he would have to apply to ACRS instead. . He is yet to hear the outcome of his case. Batur said he felt “betrayed” by the UK government.
“We helped them. We were honored to do that,” he said, speaking from a safe house. “But now, despite the promises, they have been broken. We did not expect that from the UK. They have let us down. We do not understand what to do, where to go. There is no hope of survival in this condition. There is only disappointment for us.”
Another former contractor, Aziz, 32, worked as an interpreter at the British Embassy in 2021 for GardaWorld, the security contractor that guards the embassy. His younger brother, Nazir, was captured outside his home in May 2022 and held for two weeks, during which time he was flogged on his private parts and given electric shocks.
CCTV footage from outside his family’s home, obtained by Lighthouse Reports, shows the Taliban advancing towards the house and knocking on the door, Nazir opening it and a verbal exchange between them. Within a minute, Taliban fighters begin beating him and force him into their car before they flee. Aziz said he mistook Nazir for him.
A photograph shows Nazir’s upper thigh with deep slash marks. Forensic physician Dr. Juliet Cohen said the image shows “patches of scratches and crossings of red-pink lines. [weals] Thankful for the whipping”, adding that “it was hard to see what else would cause this”.
Aziz applied to ACRS in June and received a reply in October that he was not eligible because it was determined that he “does not meet the definition of a Gardaworld contractor”.
He is on a list of 175 Gardaworld embassy staff – seen by the inquiry – who were handed over to the UK government. Only five on this list have been relocated from Afghanistan to the UK through the ARAP scheme.
“They treat British embassy staff like spies. If they catch me, I will never come out alive,” he said. “I’m going crazy. I am like a prisoner in my own house. I can’t go out. I’m scared all the time. Why won’t the British government help me?
Four days after the fall of Kabul, the Home Office announced ACRS, which it promised would resettle 5,000 Afghans in its first year.
The Foreign Office is the main department for the scheme, working alongside the Home Office, which is responsible for processing visas, conducting security checks and arranging residence in the UK.
Sources working in the Foreign Office’s Afghanistan directorate said consultations on who would be evacuated under ACRS began in August and were still ongoing, despite the department confirming it would start relocating eligible Afghans to the UK in the autumn.
A member of staff who worked on the crisis response last year said: “There is no sense that Afghanistan is any kind of priority.”
Another source said: “There has been a lot of criticism of ACRS, and my issue with it is the unfairness of the difference in approach to the Ukraine plans, which are much more liberal. There has been a lot of ping-pong in between [the Foreign Office and the Home Office] Who is sending this, and discussions about the budget – who is paying for this? – but that’s mainly resolved now.”
The Home Office drew criticism when, in February, it emerged that a third of the places available under ACRS had been given to Afghans who had relocated to Britain during Operation Pitting – the UK’s evacuation efforts in August 2021.
Zaid, 47, worked for Gardaworld as a driver at the British Embassy for 11 years until last spring. In October 2021, he knocked on the door of the home he shared with his wife and six children. He answered and three Taliban fighters immediately began questioning him.
“They said: ‘You’re still working for the British Embassy, for the infidels, you’re still being paid by them,'” Zaid said. “There I was tortured on the street. They started beating me so badly that I lost consciousness. I fell on the ground. When I woke up, they were gone, but my body was crushed.”
Photographs of Zaid after the attack show dark bruises on his shoulders and arms, and his hands and head tightly bound in plaster.
Cohen said the bruises indicated “blunt force trauma” that could have been from “kicking” or other means such as a “hard object”, concluding that the injuries were “typical of an assault”.
Zaid applied to ACRS in June 2022, but has not yet received a response. “I was told to prepare the passport and everything. No one is contacting us. We are disappointed,” he said.
The shadow immigration minister, Stephen Kinnock, called on the UK government to act “with a matter of urgency” to bring vulnerable Afghans to safety, adding that many people awaiting a response had contacted his office with “tragic stories”.
Responding to the inquiry, Kinnock said: “These important new findings show how Operation Warm Welcome has become Operation Cold Shoulder thanks to a toxic combination of Conservative government incompetence and apathy. Britain owes this brave Afghan a debt of gratitude and it is a debt that must be honoured.”
Sarah Magill, director of the Afghan evacuation and resettlement organization Azadi Charity, described the UK’s attempt to evacuate those at risk as a “fiasco”. She added: “Britain claims to be a world power but we have embarrassed ourselves internationally by showing that we cannot find and remove three definitive lists of famous people.
“The price these people pay is that they live in poverty, deprived of their rights, with many being detained and beaten by the Taliban. This is how we show our gratitude for serving the UK and keeping our diplomats safe.”
The Home Office asserted that 6,300 Afghans had been brought to safety under the ACRS, but the observer And Lighthouse Reports understands that none of these people have been accepted and transferred since January 2022, when the scheme was launched.
A UK government spokesman said: “Around 23,000 people have been brought to safety, including women’s rights campaigners, human rights defenders, academics, journalists, judges and members of the LGBT+ community. We are still working hard and have supported nearly 6,000 eligible individuals to leave Afghanistan since the end of Operation Pitting.”
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