• UN migration agency appeals for emergency Afghanistan aid

Countries that were involved in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) mission in Afghanistan have a “duty of care” to Afghans in danger under Taliban rule and should take them in as refugees, the EU executive said yesterday.
The message from the European Union is that “we have a duty to help those who are particularly at risk in Afghanistan, be it before or after the deadline” on Tuesday, ahead of which evacuations will have been halted, a European Commission spokesman said.
In a sign of Europe’s concerns about an outflow of fleeing Afghans, the Slovenian presidency of the EU announced an emergency meeting of EU interior ministers will be held in Brussels on Tuesday to focus on the fallout from Afghanistan.
The EU is “working on a comprehensive approach on Afghanistan”, one Commission spokesman, Christian Wigand, told reporters.
It includes using an existing EU-US-Canada-UN resettlement forum to secure promises to take in quotas of Afghan refugees.
Another spokesman, Eric Mamer, said “specific pledges for quotas” are expected up to a cut-off date of mid-September.
Vulnerable Afghans should be given “safe pathways” to Europe and should “expect that member states or countries that participated in particular in the Nato mission would have a duty of care” towards them, he said.
Of the 36 countries that participated in Nato’s “Resolute Support” Mission in Afghanistan, 22 of them were EU member states, including Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy and Poland.
Some of the non-EU countries that participated in the Nato mission were Albania, Australia, Britain, Canada, the United States and Turkey.
Mamer noted that European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen was “calling on the states that took part in the Nato mission to offer resettlement”.
The European Commission said it has flown out all of its staff from Afghanistan who are EU citizens except for a “core team” that continues to support evacuation efforts.
Spokesman, Peter Stano said more than 400 Afghan staff and family members had been evacuated, but a number he would not specify still wanted to leave.
Meanwhile, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has issued an urgent appeal for $24mn to help support the more than 5mn people displaced in Afghanistan and living in “extremely precarious” conditions.
The call came as the United States and allies urged Afghans to leave Kabul airport, citing the threat of an attack by Islamic State (IS) militants, as Western troops hurry to evacuate as many people as possible before an August 31 deadline.
“Our humanitarian activities continue where possible, depending on access and security. Large-scale displacement driven by conflict and drought, and exacerbated by the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, are increasing poverty and food insecurity, generating massive humanitarian and protection needs in the country,” IOM Afghanistan Chief of Mission Stuart Simpson said in a statement.
Priorities included providing shelter, water, sanitation and hygiene for the 5.5mn internally-displaced people in Afghanistan, including more than 550,000 newly-displaced in 2021, almost half of whom fled their homes since July, it said.
At the start of this year, half of Afghanistan’s 40mn people already required humanitarian assistance, including 10mn children, with needs expected to rise, the IOM said.