Obstacles to accelerating evacuation in Afghanistan: bureaucracy, disorder and even illiterate Taliban

The United States was struggling Thursday to speed up the evacuations of Americans and Afghans at Kabul airport, and is limited by obstacles ranging from Taliban checkpoints to bureaucratic obstacles. Tens of thousands of people are still waiting to be evacuated from the chaos that reigns in the country.

Taliban fighters and their checkpoints surrounded the airport, big barriers for Afghans who fear that their previous work with the West makes them the target of retaliation. Hundreds of Afghans without papers or permission to evacuate They were also gathered on the outskirts of the airport, adding to the chaos that prevented even Afghans with documents and promised flights from reaching the terminal.

Another obstacle is that many Taliban fighters they couldn’t read the documents.

As a sign of hope, the spokesperson for the State Department Ned Price told Washington that 6,000 people were given the green light for the evacuation on Thursday and were due to board military flights in the next few hours. It would be a considerable increase over previous days. Some 2,000 passengers were taken away each of the previous two daysPentagon spokesman John Kirby said.

Added that the armed forces had planes to evacuate between 5,000 and 9,000 people per day, but by Thursday a smaller number of people designated for the evacuation had managed to arrive and enter the airport.

Kirby told reporters that the limiting factor had been the availability of evacuees, not planes. He noted that They were making efforts to speed up processing, including increasing the number of consular officers who check the papers of Americans and Afghans who went to the terminal. He said additional entrances had been opened.

However, at the current rate it would be difficult for the United States to evacuate all eligible Americans and Afghans by August 31. Yesterday. President Joe Bieden clarified that US troops could stay after that date if evacuation targets were not met.

The COVID-19 pandemic, a minor concern

Amid the chaos and confusion at the airport, the United States has said it has given at least a step to ease requirements for those looking to leave: COVID-19 testing.

Although Afghanistan has been a hotspot for the coronavirus pandemic, the State Department has reported that evacuees are not required to test negative for COVID-19 to travel. “A general humanitarian exemption for COVID testing has been implemented for all people the United States government relocates from Afghanistan. “

He referred questions about how the case would be handled once the evacuees arrived in the United States to the Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to the Taliban takeover of Kabul over the weekend, medical examinations, including coronavirus tests, were required for evacuees, adding further urgency to efforts to move at-risk Afghans out of the country.

A safe broker

The United States is also pressuring the Taliban to leave a safe corridor for Americans and their Afghan collaborators to reach Kabul airport.

Kirby clarified at a press conference that American ground commanders “are in frequent communication with the Taliban to facilitate safe passage” to the airfield.

In this regard, he said that Rear Admiral Peter Vasely, who oversees the evacuation operation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, talks more than once a day directly with the insurgents on the situation. .

Price, for his part, admitted seeing reports on social media that there are people who cannot reach the airfield and in some cases they are US citizens: “We are doing everything we can mechanically, logistically … but of course there is also a diplomatic element.”

He stressed that this is something the United States takes “very seriously”: “Our intention is to relocate as many people as possible as quickly as possible.”

Washington initiated the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan in May but was forced to speed up the evacuation of the remaining Americans in Afghanistan and their allies after the rapid advance of the Taliban, who took Kabul on Sunday and controls almost the entire country.

Besides, The United States had to send military reinforcements to guarantee the security of the airport, after the fall of the capital in the hands of the insurgents.

(With information from AP and EFE)

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