Global Policy Institute Spotlights the Tragedy of Afghan Refugees
By Elaine Pasquini
Photo by Phil Pasquini
Washington: Prior to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, following the withdrawal of American and NATO troops, Afghanistan was a republic “dramatic with elections, freedom of expression, multimedia outlets, where women could attend school and go to work,” Paolo Von Schirach, president of the Global Policy Institute, said in an August 13, 2024, program at the GPI. “Now, as we know, it’s a completely different story. We know the American exit from Afghanistan was tragically and poorly managed, with the whole world seeing chaos and disorganization.”
Ahmad Sayer Daudzai, former Acting Ambassador of Afghanistan to the United Arab Emirates, was the featured guest at the in-person and online event co-hosted by Bay Atlantic University.
During his time in the UAE from 2019 through 2023, Daudzai assisted refugees in trying to not only escape from Afghanistan but also find a new life in other places.
Born in Afghanistan, Daudzai’s family relocated to Pakistan after the collapse of President Mohammad Najib’s government in 1992. After a brief stay in the United Kingdom, his family returned to Pakistan hoping eventually to return home “as soon as the situation would allow it…so we could resume our lives in Afghanistan,” he recalled.
Explaining Afghanistan’s longtime refugee crisis, Daudzai said it came in three waves. The first was in 1973 after an internal coup within Afghanistan’s royal family triggered fears of instability.
The second much larger wave of migration occurred during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and continued into the 1980s. According to some estimates, almost half of Afghanistan’s population migrated to Pakistan, Iran and beyond at that time, he said.
The third wave came after the collapse of the communist government in the 1990s, continuing until the early 2000s. In 2001, millions of Afghans returned to Afghanistan when the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan was established. “A democratic experiment started, and we saw a return not only from Pakistan, Iran and neighboring countries, but also from the United States and the United Kingdom,” Daudzai said. This “shows the Afghans’ love for their homeland does not die away when they become refugees.”
In 2006 onwards the security situation in Afghanistan deteriorated again and new waves of refugees started leaving which reached a large scale in 2014.
In 2017, Daudzai was appointed vice consul in the Afghan consulate in Istanbul, which was at the center of the illegal wave of migration from Afghanistan to Europe. Smuggling of all sorts, including human trafficking, began, he said, and “when you have one flow of illegal activity it opens the gate for other forms of illegal activity to take place,” including the smuggling of money.
Human traffickers had an incentive for the boats to sink so that no one could come and claim the money, he said. “We had many instances where a boat would sink, and when we interviewed the nationals…they would say the boat was sunk on purpose.”
When it became clear during the Donald J. Trump administration that Americans were looking for the exit, Afghan-born and senior American diplomat Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad began direct negotiations with the Taliban to find a political agreement for American and NATO troops to withdraw from Afghanistan.
After the signing of the Doha Agreement in February 2020, a spike in refugees occurred, Daudzai said, mostly illegal migrants going via the land route to Iran, Turkey and then Europe, or through the Central Asian route by way of Russia to Europe. The rapidity of US and NATO forces’ withdrawal in 2021 surprised everyone and spurred another wave of evacuees out of Afghanistan.
The Afghan Embassy in the UAE played a primary role in part of the evacuations, the ambassador said. “We’re very thankful to the UAE government who facilitated relocation for the refugees and to the US State Department,” who immediately moved the US embassy to Abu Dhabi.
Through a trilateral program run by the Afghan Embassy, the US Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the UAE authorities, 17,500 individuals were processed, he noted. “I had to take over the embassy as the Chargé d’Aff aires and Acting Ambassador and I managed the affairs of that camp for more than two years.”
The ambassador also explained the differences in illegal versus legal migration. “Ironically, illegal migrants didn’t need a passport or documentation, all they needed was to find a human trafficker. You pay, and he or she will take you within a couple of months to your destination in Europe. What I learned during this time is that the system is rigged in favor of illegal migration.” Refugees in Pakistan sometimes wait two to three years to relocate.
Asked about the number of people who worked with the Americans, NATO, and other Western organizations left behind, he said there is no correct data, but assumed the number is in the hundreds of thousands. This number includes SIV (special immigrant visa) holders and people who assisted the US mission directly and indirectly.
Out of a population of approximately 40 million Afghans, eight million have migrated out of Afghanistan since 2021. Resettlement of Afghans in the US, he stated, has been much more effective compared to other countries.
Of the Afghans remaining in their country, more than half live below the poverty line. The largest employer in Afghanistan is the Taliban-led government, so anyone who is not a Talib does not have a right to be employed in the government, he said.
Since the founding of the Islamic Emirate in September 2021, Afghan women have suffered the most. While previously millions of Afghan women – many who were the sole breadwinners of their families due to the large death toll of Afghan men in the conflict – worked for the government or the private sector as teachers or nurses, they are now barred from those jobs.
To improve life in Afghanistan, the Taliban’s approach to “inclusivity” must be changed to include Afghan women, minorities and all religions and ethnicities, he argued.
And the only leverage the US might exert on the Taliban, according to Daudzai, is diplomatic non-recognition, conditioning recognition on progress in human rights or through humanitarian aid. “But if you play hardball on humanitarian aid, the regular Afghans suffer… so leverages are limited.”
Although the US does not have an embassy in Afghanistan, it does have a mission for Afghanistan based in Doha, Qatar, headed by former deputy ambassador to Afghanistan Karen Decker. She and
the Taliban’s political office in Doha do communicate, but efforts to get people out are “going in the wrong direction,” Daudzai said, as the Taliban’s hierarchy is more established now with hardline elements firmly in charge. “The efforts are ongoing, but the results are becoming more and more difficult to achieve.”
(Elaine Pasquini is a freelance journalist. Her reports appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and Nuze.Ink.)
