Today, Explained - Fleeing Afghanistan

Episode Date: August 25, 2021

The Afghan refugee crisis started long before the US withdrawal. Al Jazeera English correspondent Ali Latifi explains from Kabul. This episode was produced by Haleema Shah with help from Jillian Weinberger, edited by Matt Collette, engineered by Efim Shapiro, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. On the show today, we're bringing you an update from Afghanistan. We reached out to Ali Latifi. He's one of Al Jazeera's correspondents in Kabul. He was born there but grew up in California.

His family fled to the United States after being jailed and tortured during the Soviet occupation. But in 2011, he returned to Kabul as a reporter. And now it's home. He actually lives just a few kilometers from the Hamid Karzai International Airport, where at least 19 people have died trying to flee the country. But outside his place, things are far less chaotic. Life on the outside is fairly normal. The banks reopened today. Stores have started to reopen. People are starting to go back about their daily lives as much as possible. But obviously, the biggest change is that there's far fewer women out on the streets. It's not to say that there isn't any, but it's just much fewer

than it would be on a normal day. You know, the restaurants and cafes and things that we used to go out in and hang out, you don't see any girls or women anymore. It's all guys. And how are things at the airport now? They're just as bad, if not worse. You know, a week ago, it was people inside the airport compound, lying down on the tarmac, trying to, you know, grab onto the wings or the tires of a plane, desperately trying to squeeze themselves onto a plane. But now, because essentially the U.S. won't allow anybody in without proper documentation, and the U.S. and the U.K. control the inside of the airport, and what the Taliban and the CIA-backed forces are doing is, you know, they're shooting into the air, they're hitting people with pipes. You know, with the main roundabout to the airport, it's this really awful situation where people are trying to run to get as close to the entrance of the airport as's uh the cia backed forces who are doing the same exact thing so really nobody is able to get near the airport unless they've gone through a special system where like a car will come and pick you up and deliver you directly

or if you can somehow convince either these ciabacked forces or the Taliban that you have proper documentation. But that's very difficult because they're basically in this mindset of don't let anybody get near. Tell me what life is like if you are one of the lucky few who can actually get into the airport. I haven't been inside. I can only say what people say. Even when you get inside, it's still masses of people being thrown into these resettlement camp type situations. And apparently, again, the U.S. forces are very abrasive, very harsh, have a very bullying attitude. They've been accused of firing tear gas. They've been accused of, you know, shooting their guns, potentially killing people and Afghan

soldiers. So it's not much more hospitable once you make it inside. And even once you make it inside, you know, only recently have they told you if you come, you need to come with the expectation that you need to provide yourself with 48 hours of food and water in case you're stuck there for two days. Because apparently, either they have very little food and water or no food and water depending upon the day and the situation. And this is all a result of this flawed visa system that has been advertised over the last few months by all of these embassies, but implemented terribly. Do we know how many people are in there right now, in the airport?

I mean, they say thousands, but I don't know exactly how many because there are apparently dozens of flights every day, so that number keeps changing. Outside the airport, I've heard it may be as high as 10,000 to 15,000 people. Where are they all going? That's the question. So some are being sent to Doha, where then they're in some kind of another camp, which I guess is like a processing center.

Some, I think they're going to start going to Dubai. Some are being sent to Uganda. There are also reports that some may be sent to Kosovo. Some are being sent to Germany. And then it's not entirely clear that everyone will go to the U.S. or the U.K., for example. There are reports that some may end up in a third country. The president of the United States and the Taliban have this agreement that all of this comes to an end on August 31st. And I think on Tuesday, President Biden reaffirmed this August 31st deadline. The completion by August 31st depends upon the Taliban continuing to cooperate and allow access to the airport for those who were transporting out and no disruptions to our operations.

As far as you know, will everyone around this airport, in this airport that is desperately trying to flee, make it out before August 31st? I think the people in the airport will. I'm almost certain the people outside will not make it. Because there's so many of them. And if they can't even make it inside, who's actually processing their documents? You know, these are just people being forced to squat and squalor and just hope that somebody somewhere takes mercy on them, takes them by the hand,

and takes them inside the airport. The refugee crisis in Afghanistan has been decades in the making. More on that in a moment. Thank you. spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained,

R-A-M-P dot com slash explained, cards issued by Sutton Bank. Member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. This NFL season, get in on all the hard-hitting action with FanDuel, North America's number one sportsbook. You can bet on anything from money lines to spreads and player props, or combine your bets in a same-game parlay for a shot at an even bigger payout. We'll be right back. located in Ontario. Gambling.com, call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. So Ali, we established that these Afghan refugees are going to Doha, they're going to Uganda,

they're going to Kosovo, but that isn't their final destination, right? Right. So there are people who had, for instance, they were in the process of a visa with the French or the Germans or the British, and they arrive where they're supposed to. Same thing with the Canadians and also the U.S. But the problem is, is you don't necessarily know how long each person will wait wherever they go along the way. You know, for instance, so my friends were going to France. They were in the Kabul airport for, I think, two days. Then they went to Abu Dhabi, then from Abu Dhabi. They went to the south of France, where now they're quarantining for 10 days.

And then eventually they're supposed to be sent to Paris. So in theory, people do arrive in whatever location they were promised, but it's a question of how long that processing takes. They'll be, you know, in some other country. Western nations and countries in the region have been accepting Afghan refugees for decades now. They've also been deporting them. Yeah? Tell me more about that experience.

I've been going to Turkey and Greece to look at the situation of Afghan refugees since 2013. Akhtar and some 1,600 Afghan boys and men found themselves living in squalor in this cardboard shanty town in Greece's western port city of Patras. It's never been clear. It's never been good. There were still people going, you know, young boys in Greece

going on the back of freezer trucks trying to get to Macedonia and then on to another country trying to reach Germany or France or Italy or even somehow the UK. There is concern that the EU is returning asylum seekers to the very instability they fled in the first place. In early October, the bloc reached a deal with Afghan government to deport an unlimited number of the country's asylum seekers. And then we had in 2015-16 where there were literal tour buses

that would stop outside the Victoria Square Park in Athens and for, I forget, like 30 euros, 50 euros, take people directly to the Macedonian border. Afghan migrants, however, have breached the fence between Greece and Macedonia. Scores of asylum seekers slipped through into Macedonia. And then starting in 2016, 17, you know, people weren't really allowed to leave Turkey because they would essentially be deported right away. An unceremonious end to what could have been a life-changing trip.

The first contingent of deporting hundreds of illegal Afghan migrants started on Sunday. And that's when the deportation flights from Turkey took off. Forming an orderly queue in Elzurum Airport in northeastern Turkey, these migrants are chanced to back to their home country. And in years past, there would be maybe a few, you know, deportees that they would immediately hide in the back of the plane. But in recent years, it's gotten so big that, you know, it would be 100, 200 deportees on a flight,

and they would be sitting all the way up to the very front rows of the plane. There was even pictures in 2018 or 19 of Afghan deportees sitting business class on flights because the flights were so overbooked that they just wanted to get rid of these Afghan refugees. There are 170,000 Afghan refugees who have registered with the UN in Turkey. It's a new migration wave for the Turkish authorities, but Turkey is already hosting at least 3.5 million Syrians and doesn't want another refugee influx. So the situation has never been good. And it's only been recently that, for instance, of EU nations, because of what's been going on with the Taliban takeover,

that they've stopped deporting Afghan refugees. It's really only been in the last couple of weeks. Before that, they continued to deport under the guise that Kabul is safe. So paradoxically, what you're saying is this grotesque situation in Afghanistan right now has actually made things somewhat better for Afghan refugees? In a way, yes, because, you know, it's been a couple weeks that they can't be deported. Germany and the Netherlands have decided to allow failed Afghan asylum seekers to stay temporarily. German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said that the move comes in light of Afghanistan's security situation.

But that's not a permanent thing because there was other periods, for instance COVID, where they basically just paused the deportations. They didn't cancel them. So that just meant you could potentially stay in Germany or wherever for a little bit longer. So again, that's the question of, you know, is this just another pause? Or is it some kind of like a permanent stay on those pre-existing refugees to not deport them? Ali, I know you're an Afghan national. You're also a U.S. citizen. I mean, what's painful watching all this, it seems like for the whole world, is knowing

that it could have been avoided, that these deadlines are kind of arbitrary. This war has been going on for 20 years. And all of a sudden, there's this mass rush to evacuate, to wrap things up. I don't think it's all of a sudden. Yeah. I think this is the result of 20 years of a failed, flawed occupation, bad planning, bad policy, corruption, fraud on all sides. This is what it ends up as because 20 years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, not only did the Taliban take back power, you know, that the U.S. essentially just handed to them, but they're still considered scary and dangerous enough for people to be willing to sit in dirt and mud and dust and filthy water in the vague hope that they may be able to get on a plane. So if the 20 years of occupation had worked,

why are people so desperate to get out? Why are the Taliban still so powerful that they could take over the country? and why are they still so scary to people if these last 20 years had worked? Are you afraid for what comes next? Yes, everybody is, because you don't know what comes next. You hope that it at least stays the way it looks on the outside streets right now. And you hope for the best that the Taliban really does create an inclusive government and does include other political figures from the last 20, 30, 40 years of history

who, even though they're flawed, at the very least their presence could hopefully mitigate some of their more extreme views. So that's hoping for good or the best. And then the biggest fear is that, you know, once the world's attention turns away in a couple weeks, that they all of a sudden go back to the way they were in the 90s. You know, the Taliban, we just met with them today. They had a briefing with all of these journalists, and they kept saying, oh, we want you guys to feel safe and they don't know what they... Do you know what, like, that's not reassuring.

How can you not control the people you put out there? And yes, the former Afghan police had the same issue, but that's not an excuse. You know, if you are the Islamic Emirate, and you're trying to do better than the Islamic Republic, how can you not control your men to, you know, not shoot into the air and not harass people? I wonder, do you get a sense from the people you've been speaking to in Kabul, even after the havoc that international intervention has wrought in the country, how much people are desperate for the UK, the United States, to remain invested in the future of Afghanistan? That's more a necessity, you know. That's more, A, keep a watch on these guys. And, you know, you're the ones that can hold them accountable. So make sure that you watch out and you really observe everything that can hold them accountable. So make sure that you watch out

and you really observe everything that they're doing and then throw it back in their face and make them face some kind of a punishment for it. And B, for years you enabled corrupt politicians, your own forces, your own leaders, your own NGOs were corrupt. At least don't betray us financially. If the IMF, if the World Bank, if the Federal Reserve in the US, if they don't reopen access

to the assets Afghanistan has around the world, or the financial programs it's part of around the world, no one will be able to earn a salary. So again, it's sort of the necessity that occupation creates, right? It makes you beholden to outside powers, even though those outside powers betrayed you. Are you going to stay, Ali? I hope to stay for as long as I can. And I hope the situation doesn't get to a point where I would have to leave. Because, you know,

I always say, I left once when I was little and it wasn't my choice. And now, if I leave, I want it to be my choice for a good reason, not because this group forced me out.

Ali Latifi is a correspondent for Al Jazeera English. Our episode today was produced by Halima Shah with help from Jillian Weinberger. I'm Sean Romsferum. This is Today Explained. Thank you.