A recently-arrived refugee from Afghanistan waiting for medic support at a temporary camp in Germany in 2021. Photograph: Sascha Schuermann/Getty ImagesLisa O'Carroll Brussels correspondent
THE GUARDIAN
Wed 31 May 2023
Just 271 Afghans were resettled in the EU in 2022, 0.1% of the 270,000 identified as in need of permanent protection, it has emerged.
Leading charity the International Rescue Committee accused EU leaders of “staggering neglect” of Afghan refugees with many remaining trapped in “prison-like” conditions on Greek islands.
In a damning report, the International Rescue Committee claims EU member states have “consistently” failed to deliver on legal resettlement promises leaving many Afghans who do reach the EU borders “vulnerable” all over again.
It claims that not a single person has arrived under a scheme established in Germany in 2021 to resettle up to 1,000 Afghans a month, while Italy has taken just half the refugees it promised.
Between 2021 and 2022, about 41,500 Afghans at risk were admitted to the EU, many through ad hoc emergency evacuations in August 2021. “While the IRC welcomes each of these efforts, this response remains vastly insufficient,” the IRC reports said.
Some countries have not taken any Afghans at all since Kabul fell and the country was taken over by the Taliban, according to its report, Two years on Afghans still lack pathways to safety in the EU.
Many remain “trapped in remote and prison-like conditions” in camps on Greek islands “preventing their inclusion into local communities and devastating their mental health”, said the report.
The authors also found that more than 90% of the Afghans supported by the IRC’s mental health teams in Lesbos and Athens experienced symptoms of anxiety, and 86% of depression, in the year to March 2023,
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David Miliband, head of the International Rescue Committee, said: “This report highlights staggering neglect of Afghans by the member states of the European Union, which puts them at risk at every step of their journeys in search of protection.
“While some states’s well-intentioned plans to bring Afghans to safety have hit repeated delays and obstacles, other countries have failed to make any pledges at all, or to guarantee adequate protection and inclusion for the tiny proportion of Afghan refugees who manage to reach Europe.”
He said the welcome EU member states showed to more than 8 million people fleeing Ukraine showed its capacity to deliver.
“There is simply no excuse for treating Afghans, and refugees forced from their homes elsewhere, any differently,” Miliband added.
The IRC report focuses on the lack of safe pathways for refugees but does not appear to reflect the wider efforts made in countries like Germany to support Afghans.
In March the German Office of National Statistics, Destatis, announced that 286,000 Afghan nationals arrived and were registered in the country in 2022.
However, it has faced local criticism that it has acted too slow on its promises.
One refugee interviewed for the IRC report said she had “high hopes” for resettlement in Germany but the process, which was successful, took two and a half years.
“Waiting for an answer was a very difficult and anxious time for me, as I was without my two children in this foreign country whose culture I did not know. I had no choice but to wait and hope that one day I would be able to offer my children a safe life here,” Zahra, 60, said.
The IRC called on EU member states to “scale up protection pathways” and aim to resettle 42,500 Afghan refugees over the coming five years “at a minimum”.
The IRC suggests the UK, which is under constant criticism for failing to deliver on resettlement schemes, is doing better than many EU states.
British government data updated last week showed indefinite leave to remain has been given to just under 13,000 Afghans under two UK resettlement and relocation programmes.
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