New Zealand has closed resettlement applications for Afghans who worked with troops during the occupation, amid ongoing chaos at Kabul airport.
“The imminent withdrawal of the US from Hamid Karzai international airport, which has been critical to sustain our operations in Kabul, means that our ability to help individuals on the ground is very limited,” the ministry of foreign affairs and trade said in a statement. “We cannot guarantee that we will be able to assist all those we are seeking to evacuate.
“Given the limited time remaining for evacuation flights to depart and the evacuation window closing imminently, New Zealand is no longer accepting applications from Afghan nationals for resettlement in New Zealand.”
The US, which is currently controlling Kabul airport, is due to withdraw on 31 August. Pentagon officials said on Wednesday that there were still 10,000 people at the airport waiting to be evacuated. The British defence secretary said Afghans who wanted to flee to Britain might be better off “trying to get to the border” than awaiting evacuation.
For those who have already procured resettlement visas, even accessing the airport is extremely difficult. At least 20 people have already died in and around Kabul airport, many crushed by stampeding crowds or hit by stray bullets.
New Zealanders of Afghan descent report their families are making multiple attempts to reach the airport gates only to be turned back, told by Taliban fighters that their visas are not valid, or retreating after seeing others shot or trampled in the crowd.
One New Zealand Afghan the Guardian has chosen not to identify has been trying to evacuate his wife. On Tuesday he said her three attempts to reach the airport had failed. Each effort put his family in danger, he said, both from the immediate threat of trampling, beatings and bullets in the crowds and the longer-term fear that identifying oneself as an Afghan with connections to New Zealand could make them a target.
“Every time they have to go back home and come back, their lives are being put at risk,” he said.
New Zealand is not providing firm numbers of how many people have been evacuated, citing privacy and security reasons. This also means there is no way of knowing exactly how many of the 200-plus New Zealanders, or the 37-plus translators and Afghan workers who assisted troops, have successfully been flown out. Rear Admiral Jim Gilmour, commander of joint forces New Zealand, told Stuff on Wednesday that “about 200” on New Zealand’s list had been evacuated so far.
One interpreter who worked for New Zealand troops said on Wednesday he had received a visa, after days waiting for processing. He had not yet reached the airport.
“While the current evacuation operation must draw to an end, our efforts to help those who have helped us do not end here,” the ministry of foreign affairs and trade’s statement read. “The New Zealand government will consider how to best assist and support Afghan nationals in other ways.”
New Zealand has not committed to taking any additional refugees from Afghanistan.
The ministry said applications from Afghan nationals who helped the New Zealand defence force or other government agencies and their immediate families received before midnight, or 11.59pm on 25 August, would continue to be processed.
