British MPs ‘ashamed’ of treatment of Afghan aid workers

LONDON:A group of British MPs has said they are “ashamed” at the lack of support offered to aid workers in Afghanistan following NATO’s withdrawal from the country last year.

They made the comments in response to a report by the Commons International Development Committee, which found that ministers were too slow to provide help to aid workers and Afghans.

Following the West’s withdrawal from the country, some Afghan aid workers — at risk of reprisals at the hands of the Taliban — felt “abandoned” by the British government, said the report.

It added: “Any contingency plans that the Government had for evacuating aid workers from Afghanistan were neither apparent nor scaled adequately in the face of the rapid fall of Kabul and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021.”

Elizabeth Winter, founder and special advisor at British & Irish Agencies Afghanistan Group, told the committee: “Trying to get through to people; trying to get your people out because you knew very well that they were at major risk — whether they were people who had worked with the Government, or whether they were well-known civil society activists or journalists — and in real fear of their lives; trying to get them on a list; and then trying to get them to the airport was a major issue.”

She added: “It remains a major issue. There are still people there who need to get out now, and we have provided chapter and verse more than once.”

While the UK did evacuate around 15,000 Afghans during the fall of Kabul, schemes set up since to evacuate more at-risk Afghans “do not adequately support” those who want to come to Britain.

Further, aid pledged by the UK had been released in an “excruciatingly slow” manner despite “significant sums” being promised.

A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesperson said the government had distributed £261 million ($347.5 million) in aid in Afghanistan this financial year.

Labour MP Sarah Champion, the committee’s chair, said: “We are deeply grateful to aid workers — be they British, Afghan or of other nationalities — for all they have done for the people of Afghanistan. The work that they do is phenomenal.

“But we are ashamed that the government did not give them the support that they needed during the UK’s withdrawal, or now, during the complex task of delivering an aid program under Taliban rule.”

The report made a series of recommendations for the government, including speeding up the rollout of Afghan resettlement schemes and working with international partners to unblock Afghanistan’s banking system, because frozen assets are a significant obstacle to poverty alleviation in the country.

It said: “We endorse the Government’s policy of developing a pragmatic working relationship with the Taliban to enable humanitarian aid to reach the people of Afghanistan.”