Sunday ” Aug” 22 Aug 2021 SOURCE: AP
Haunted by a 2015 migration crisis fuelled by the Syrian war, European leaders desperately want to avoid another large-scale influx of refugees and migrants from Afghanistan.
Except for those who helped Western forces in the country’s two-decade war, the message to Afghans considering fleeing to Europe is: If you must leave, go to neighbouring countries, but don’t come here
“It must be our goal to keep the majority of the people in the region,” Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said last week, echoing what many European leaders say.
European Union officials told a meeting of interior ministers last week the most important lesson from 2015 was not to leave Afghans to their own devices, and without urgent humanitarian help they will start moving, according to a confidential German diplomatic memo obtained by The Associated Press
Austria, among the EU’s migration hardliners, suggested setting up “deportation centres” in countries neighbouring Afghanistan so EU countries can deport Afghans who have been denied asylum – even if they cannot be sent back to their homeland.
The desperate scenes of people clinging to aircraft taking off from Kabul’s airport have only deepened Europe’s anxiety over a potential refugee crisis. The United States and its NATO allies are scrambling to evacuate thousands of Afghans who fear they will be punished by the Taliban for having worked with Western forces. But other Afghans are unlikely to get the same welcome.
Even Germany, which since 2015 has admitted more Syrians than any other Western nation, is sending a different signal today.