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Afghanistan Agrees to Take Back Refugees Europe Rejected New Deal With E.U. to Send Back Wave of Afghan Refugees
(about 2 hours later)
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan and the European Union announced a deal on Wednesday to send home tens of thousands of Afghan refugees whose asylum applications were rejected in Europe. BRUSSELS — The European Union and Afghanistan announced a deal on Wednesday that would send back tens of thousands of Afghan refugees whose asylum applications were rejected in Europe, at a time when the intensifying Taliban war is killing and wounding more civilians than ever.
The move came as the Taliban’s siege on parts of Kunduz continued for a third day, with civilians caught in a messy urban fight. The agreement was announced alongside an international conference in which governments pledged $3.75 billion in annual development aid to Afghanistan over the next four years. But few of the keynote speakers even hinted at the worsening security in the country in recent weeks, and none publicly discussed the repatriation deal, which was said to have been signed on Sunday.
The deal was made public before a gathering in Brussels of dozens of world leaders whose governments were expected to pledge more than $3 billion in annual development aid to Afghanistan over the next four years. “The E.U. and the government of Afghanistan intend to cooperate closely in order to organize the dignified, safe and orderly return of Afghan nationals to Afghanistan who do not fulfill the conditions to stay in the E.U.,” the agreement read.
“The E.U. and the government of Afghanistan intend to cooperate closely in order to organize the dignified, safe and orderly return of Afghan nationals to Afghanistan who do not fulfill the conditions to stay in the E.U.,” the 28-country bloc said in an announcement. A wave of hundreds of thousands of refugees from war-torn countries including Syria and Afghanistan in recent years has driven urgent European efforts to keep more from coming and send many back to the Middle East and Asia.
Afghanistan’s commitment to accept tens of thousands of rejected asylum seekers back into a country where violence is a daily reality was seen as a condition for the aid, according to some news reports. But the new Afghanistan deal, in particular, raises the question of whether Europe will be sending refugees from war back into a clearly dangerous conflict. That would be a breach of the international convention on refugees, and a factor that has kept people from being forcibly repatriated to South Sudan or Syria, for example.
Nearly 200,000 Afghans applied for asylum in Europe in 2015, the second-largest group, after Syrians. The number of Afghan applicants increased more than 350 percent from 2014, according to European Union figures, underlining the deteriorating security in the country and the lack of hope among Afghans. As speakers at the conference were praising improvements in Afghanistan, the very idea that even important Afghan cities could be secured was under direct assault.
Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, rejected reports of aid conditionality and said that the agreement had been signed days earlier as part of a separate process. Taliban fighters on Wednesday were attacking Afghan security forces who were fighting for a third day to maintain control of the main government buildings in Kunduz, a vital provincial capital that briefly fell to insurgents last year. In the Afghan south, another of the few remaining government-held districts in Helmand Province has been seized by the insurgents this week. At no time since before the 2001 American invasion of Afghanistan have the Taliban controlled more territory in the country.
“There is never, never a link between our development aid and whatever we do on migration,” Ms. Mogherini said before the start of the Brussels conference. “While donors are preoccupied with deterring refugee flight, they should focus instead on security force and Taliban abuses and children’s lack of access to education, and address the reasons people are so desperate to leave,” said Brad Adams, the Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
The refugee deal was signed on Sunday, according to news reports. A day before the accord was announced publicly, the Afghan government rejected the idea that it had agreed to take back refugees. In 2015 alone, 213,000 Afghans arrived in Europe, with 176,900 claiming asylum that year, according to European Union data. Fifty percent to 60 percent of such Afghan requests have been denied so far, meaning that tens of thousands of people could be returned to Afghanistan under the deal.
Asked about reports of an agreement with the European Union, President Ashraf Ghani’s spokesman, Haroon Chakhansuri, had said in a text message from Brussels, “It is absolutely not true.” European officials denied that the repatriation deal was a condition for aid to Afghanistan, with Federica Mogherini, the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security, telling reporters,“There is never, never a link between our development aid and whatever we do on migration.”
The signed agreement, which will serve as a framework for cooperation for two years but can be extended, did not provide information on the number of Afghans who would be returned to their home country, but it suggests preparations for a major undertaking. But Ekram Afzali, head of Integrity Watch Afghanistan and part of the Afghan delegation meeting with the Europeans in Brussels, said delegates were told by both Afghan and international officials that the repatriation deal was a quid pro quo for European aid. A leaked European Union memo dated March 3 discussed openly making pledges of aid at this week’s conference conditional on Afghanistan’s agreement with the repatriation deal.
“Both sides will explore the possibility to build a dedicated terminal for return in Kabul airport and express their willingness to carry out nonscheduled flights at the best convenient time,” the announcement said. At the conference, Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that American funding of civilian programs would continue “at or near current levels, on average, all the way through 2020.” Such funding in the current year is about $1.1 billion, according to the State Department spokesman John Kirby.
The deal is bound to anger many in Kabul, the capital, particularly as the families of many senior government officials live abroad. Members of the coalition government also seemed to be divided over the terms, with the minister of refugees cautioning, in a statement on Wednesday, “host countries to stop forced repatriation of Afghan migrants.” Europe pledged 1.3 billion euros annually, or about $1.46 million, making it the single biggest donor, while British officials were expected to provide aid of more than $900 million a year.
Sayed Ali Kazemi, a lawmaker, said the government’s priority should be restoring security before agreeing to the return of those who braved dangerous waters and spent money to make it to Europe. None of those aid commitments were tied to the security situation, but they were linked to progress by the Afghan government in meeting goals outlined by an international donors’ conference that was held in Tokyo in 2012. This year’s conference was one of a series in which Afghanistan’s progress on benchmarks, called the Tokyo Framework, was evaluated.
“All those who went to Europe — most of them sold all their properties for half price and spent the money to get to Europe, and now when you bring them back, where should they live?” Mr. Kazemi said. “Some of the emigrants escaped from war, and the place they come from is now controlled by the Taliban. Where should these people go?” Participants at the conference seemed determined to look on the bright side.
In Kunduz, fighting continued on Wednesday, despite Afghan officials saying their forces were making progress in clearing Taliban fighters who took over parts of the city on Monday. As much of the city remained under lockdown, Taliban fighters fired on the provincial governor’s compound and the police headquarters from the roofs of homes nearby. “The past four years have not been easy,” Mr. Kerry said. “But Afghanistan’s upward trajectory continues.”
“The Taliban came this morning, told us to leave our homes,” said Khalid Durani, a resident of the city who lives near the governor’s compound. “They climbed the roofs and started firing at the police headquarters and the governor’s compound — a heavy firefight is going on now.” Ashraf Ghani, the president of Afghanistan, cited success on many fronts: “Our new development partnership with the United States is condition-based and we’ve met all the conditions.”
The Taliban’s re-entry into Kunduz, about a year since they first overran the city, has raised questions about the ability of Afghan forces to hold major urban centers. It is also testing the commitment of their American-led NATO partners to prevent major blows to a shaky coalition administration in Kabul, which has been struggling in the face of territorial gains by the Taliban as well as internal political bickering. But this year’s conference was distinguished less by what was publicly discussed than by what was not — among them some of those benchmarks for aid.
Although small teams of American forces were involved in defending the governor’s compound, according to Afghan officials, how far the Americans can go is complicated by the aftermath of helping retake Kunduz last year. As part of that effort, American planes mistakenly bombed a Doctors Without Borders hospital, killing at least 42 people. Transparency International, for instance, criticized the progress on fighting corruption — one of the Tokyo benchmarks — charging that of 22 central commitments of anticorruption measures made by the Afghan government, only two have been carried out.
Other benchmarks that were discussed were progress on women’s issues, human rights and elections. Afghanistan was to have held parliamentary elections by 2015, and finalized procedures for future elections, neither of which has happened. That was the one area where Mr. Kerry was critical, if mildly.
“I urge them to move forward as a matter of urgency to appoint electoral authorities and unveil a realistic time frame for parliamentary elections,” Mr. Kerry said.
Mr. Kerry was among several leaders at the conference who repeatedly praised Afghanistan for enrolling millions of girls in schools, which was not done until 2002, after the Taliban was ousted from power. Doubts have long been raised that Afghan figures on girls’ enrollment are exaggerated, however, and recently there have been reports that girls’ schools have been closing because of rising security concerns.
Progress on human rights and women’s rights was severely criticized as well. “We’ve actually gone backwards since Tokyo in the extent that human rights are included in the measurable benchmarks,” said Heather Barr, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who has worked extensively in Afghanistan.
Against that backdrop, the new repatriation deal with Europe instantly rankled Afghan officials and international aid workers, some of whom said that by any measure of stability, Afghanistan was a hazardous place.
Though the language of the deal, called the Joint Way Forward, did not provide information on the number of Afghans who would be returned home, the details available suggest preparations for a major undertaking.
“Both sides will explore the possibility to build a dedicated terminal for return in Kabul airport and express their willingness to carry out nonscheduled flights at the best convenient time,” said a document describing the deal.
The government’s agreement to the deal was bound to anger many in the Afghan government, particularly since the families of a large number of the government’s senior officials live abroad.
“We call on European countries to suspend the deportation of Afghan refugees in Europe,” said Maiwand Rahyab, of the Afghan Institute for Civil Society, a delegate in Brussels. “We call on the international community to uphold their principles and their European values, and respect the rights of Afghan refugees until such time as Afghanistan is a peaceful country.”
Timor Sharan, senior analyst for Afghanistan at the International Crisis Group, said the European motivation for sending large number of Afghan asylum seekers back was not based on the realities in Afghanistan, but rather on anti-immigration sentiment in Europe.
“This is a political response to a humanitarian situation,” Mr. Sharan said.
Dan Tyler, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s protection officer for Asia and Europe, said the deal was part of an “extremely concerning” trend in Europe on what has been called migration-sensitive aid.
“Return conditions are on every indicator deteriorating: People are faring extremely badly, there are huge spikes in malnutrition, displacement internally, and the E.U. is striking deals to return asylum seekers,” Mr. Tyler said.
In addition to the fact that even Afghan districts and major highways once declared safe are now threatened or overrun by the Taliban, the returnees from Europe will go back to a dire economic crisis, with an unemployment rate of about 35 percent and about 400,000 young people entering the job market every year.
“Their logic is that provincial capitals are safe. But the reality — look at Kunduz, Helmand, Uruzgan, and even Kabul with the recent suicide bombings — clearly indicates they are not safe,” Mr. Sharan said. “With nearly 10,000 troops in Kunduz, the government is not able to secure a provincial capital.”
In Kunduz on Wednesday, residents fled in increasingly large numbers despite Taliban roadblocks on the main roads out. More than 1,000 families arrived in neighboring Takhar Province alone, its governor said.
Shops in Kunduz remained closed, and the city was without electricity and running water for a third day.
Marzia Salam Yaftali, head doctor at Kunduz’s central hospital, said the Taliban’s roadblocks left many unable to bring in their wounded. Even the hospital where she works did not remain safe: several mortar shells hit the compound in the afternoon, forcing the workers to move patients to the basement.
“The opposition group is able to capture the city in a single day, but government with all its power is not able to recapture the city in three days,” said Sayid Assadullah Sadat, a member of the Kunduz provincial council. “The fighting is house to house.”