THE FALL OF KABUL

On 15 August 2021 the Taliban entered Kabul and seized power in Afghanistan. The political and media discourse in Europe and North America immediately focused on the prospects of enormous numbers of refugees leaving the country and heading for the global North. The German interior minister, Horst Seehofer, said he expected up to five million refugees to leave the country, and the Iranian government estimated that it could face an influx of 500,000 Afghans over the next six months (Loft 2021: 8). The United Kingdom government announced a resettlement programme for 20,000 people over a five-year period, but emphasised that people attempting to reach the country through other ‘irregular’ routes would not receive refugee status (Loft 2021: 11). That scheme did not open until January 2022.

Whatever the accuracy of these predictions, what we know is that vast numbers of people have been displaced within the country, and, in contrast to the media and politicians, international aid agencies were stressing the importance of assisting them. By the end of 2020 there were 2.9 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), and by July 2021 this had risen to 3.5 million. UNHCR reported that ‘The overwhelming majority of Afghans forced to flee remain within the country, as close to their homes as fighting will allow’, and the major movement is from rural areas to cities such as Kabul, where nearly 120,000 people have fled since the beginning of the year. This will exacerbate an already serious situation, with the UN stating in July 2021 that nearly half of Afghanistan’s population, 18.5 million people, need some kind of humanitarian support, with a third suffering from malnutrition and half of children under five experiencing acute malnutrition. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has called for $1.3 billion to support its humanitarian efforts in the country, but has only received 38 per cent of this, with the United Kingdom contributing 3.8 per cent (Loft 2021: 3). On 20 August UNHCR spokesperson Shabia Mantoo said that the organisation was ‘concerned about the prevailing needs within Afghanistan, and urges support to ensure that all those requiring assistance are not forgotten’.