They have been waiting to enter America since Washington’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, human rights activists claim
Afghan citizens evacuated by Washington during the chaotic withdrawal from the country in 2021 remain stranded in around 36 countries, often in prison-like facilities, according to new documents released by several human rights grounds on Tuesday.
“Hundreds to thousands” of Afghans, who were forced to flee during the Taliban’s takeover, are still “detained or stranded” with pending applications to enter the US, according to a joint press release by the Center for Constitutional Rights, Abolitionist Law Center, and Muslim Advocates.
“Rather, correspondence from Afghan civilians and investigations by human rights groups confirm uncertainty for months up to years on end,” the document reads.
The records, offering a snapshot up to the fall of 2023, reveal Washington’s involvement in operations across the sites, where human rights abuses like “cases of family separation,” denial of access to humanitarian organizations, as well as “inhumane conditions, have been reported, resulting in “trauma and mental health crises.”
The documents were obtained by the groups following litigation against the Departments of Defense, State, and Homeland Security, according to The Guardian.
An attorney and program manager at the Abolitionist Law Center, Sadaf Doost, told the newspaper that advocates filed records requests to seek information about conditions at several places, where they knew Afghans were being held. The papers indicated that those evacuated have been “detained, held, or otherwise forced to remain in limbo” in some 36 nations, he said.
The documents do not reveal how many of these countries are housing the evacuees in such conditions, but notes that there are “makeshift holding facilities” for Afghans in Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Italy, and Germany.
“One document shows, for example, that US officials allowed a facility in Qatar to hold 4,000 people even though the recommended limit for ‘safe and humane accommodations’ was 2,600,” the release said.
A spokesperson for the US State Department told The Guardian that Washington’s efforts to resettle eligible Afghans had been ongoing since 2021, adding that applicants were “allowed to be present on third country platforms with the permission of the host country” while their cases are processed. The spokesperson said the US had issued 33,000 special immigrant visas for Afghans in 2024.
The withdrawal from Afghanistan, initiated by then-President Donald Trump following a 20-year military campaign that cost billions of dollars and killed tens of thousands, was completed under Joe Biden. Washington has been roundly criticized for the handling of the evacuation, in which 13 American service members were killed, and for leaving thousands of allied Afghans behind.
The worsening humanitarian situation in Afghanistan resulted in 3.5 million people becoming displaced in 2021 alone, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
