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Six countries urge EU not to halt deportations of unsuccessful Afghan asylum seekers

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(Last Updated On: August 11, 2021)

Six EU member states have sent a letter to the bloc’s executive warning against halting deportations of unsuccessful Afghan asylum seekers despite major advances of Taliban militants in their country, Reuters reported.

The Taliban, fighting to reimpose strict Islamic law after their 2001 ouster, have made sweeping gains in their campaign to defeat the government as U.S.-led foreign forces pull out, capturing a sixth provincial capital on Monday.

“Stopping returns sends the wrong signal and is likely to motivate even more Afghan citizens to leave their home for the EU,” Austria, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece and Germany said in the letter, which was posted on Twitter by a journalist for Belgium’s weekly Knack news magazine.

“This is why we urge you and your teams at the Commission to intensify talks with the Afghan government on how returns to Afghanistan can and will continue in the coming months.”

The European Commission said it had received the letter and would reply in due time, Reuters reported.

The issue is expected to come up at an online crisis meeting of EU domestic affairs ministers on Aug. 18, which was arranged mainly to discuss a surge of illegal border crossings from Belarus to EU member state Lithuania.

According to Reuters Poland and Latvia have also seen an increased flow of migrants from Belarus.

Since 2015, around 570,000 Afghans have requested asylum in the EU, the letter from the six EU countries noted, 44,000 in 2020 alone, making Afghanistan the second most important country of origin last year.

“We fully recognise the sensitive situation in Afghanistan in light of the foreseen withdrawal of international troops,” the countries said, adding that an estimated 4.6 million Afghans were already displaced, many of them in the region.

The six EU members urged the bloc to look into the possibility of providing the best support for refugees in neighbouring countries by increasing cooperation with countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.

Belgium’s state secretary for asylum and migration, Sammy Mahdi, defended the initiative against criticism.

“That regions of a country are not safe does not mean that each national of that country automatically is entitled to protection,” he said on Twitter late on Monday, adding deportations of rejected asylum seekers from Afghanistan who are ordered to leave the country must remain possible.

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IEA has fulfilled all the conditions and it should be recognized: deputy PM

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(Last Updated On: March 31, 2023)

In a meeting with the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, the political deputy of the Prime Minister of the Islamic Emirate said that the government has fulfilled all the conditions and it should be recognized.

Mawlawi Abdul Kabir also said that the Islamic Emirate wants active engagement with the international community, but the United Nations should lift sanctions on the Islamic Emirate and its officials.

According to him, Daesh is a global threat, but the Islamic Emirate has rooted out the group in Afghanistan.

The political deputy of the Prime Minister also emphasized that the Islamic Emirate believes in dialogue and also believes in an inclusive system and wants appointments to be made based on expertise.

On the other hand, the special representative of the United Nations Secretary General for Afghanistan said in the meeting that the UN will continue to deliver aid to the country, according to a statement released by IEA.

Roza Otunbayeva emphasized on solving Afghanistan’s problems through dialogue, and said that the United Nations will work in this field.

Khairullah Khairkhah, Minister of Information and Culture, Anas Haqqani, senior member of the Islamic Emirate, and Markus Potzel, UNAMA’s political deputy, were also present in the meeting.

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Iran hands over 20 Afghan detainees to IEA officials

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(Last Updated On: March 31, 2023)

The Islamic Emirate’s foreign ministry officials in Nimruz province said that 20 Afghan prisoners, including students, scholars and ordinary citizens were released from Iran’s Zahedan province.

The Directorate of Information and Culture in western Nimruz province in an announcement said that after being released, the detainees were handed over to the IEA officials in Zaranj the provincial capital of Nimruz province. 

According to local officials, these individuals were incarcerated due to failing to provide legal stay documents and visas and were released following the efforts of the Afghan consulate in Zahedan.

Mawlavi Sediqullah Nasrat, the head of the refugee and repatriation center in Nimruz province stated that returnees have been referred to International Organization for Migration (IOM) to receive the necessary help.

In addition, it is reported that hundreds of Afghan inmates have been released from prisons in Pakistan and Iran and returned to Afghanistan over the past month.

On Thursday (March 30) a delegation from the Ministry of Refugee and Repatriation of Afghanistan met with the representatives of Afghan refugees in Sistan and Baluchistan and Qom provinces and vowed to address refugees’ problems and find solutions respectively.

Over the past nine months, more than 2045 Afghan refugees returned to the country through the Islam Qala crossing point, according to Afghan border officials.

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UN supports 24 addiction treatment centers in Afghanistan

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(Last Updated On: March 31, 2023)

The United Nations Drug Control Programme and the Centre for International Crime Prevention, (UNODC) say it will support the rehabilitation program of drug addicts in Afghanistan, by covering 24 addicts’ treatment centers, state-run Bakhtar agency reported.

The UNODC will provide food, heating equipment, health materials, and medicine for these centers.

Currently, 3.5 million, which is about 10% of the total population of Afghanistan, are drug addicts, according to UNODC.

The UNODC will support these centers for at least six months.

The UNODC Office in Afghanistan, sharing reports says that the amount of land under poppy cultivation in Afghanistan in 2001 was about 8 thousand hectares, but after the US attack on Afghanistan, the upward trend of drug production in this country not only did not stop, but it gained speed and in 2017, the land under poppy cultivation increased to 224 thousand hectares.

With the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan, poppy cultivation has been banned in this country, and those who disobey this order will be punished.

The Islamic Emirate put an end to the gathering of thousands of addicts from around Kabul mainly Pul-Sokhta, which for many years was the solitary life of addicts and the hot market for buying and dealing drugs in the capital, thousands of addicts were gathered from Kabul and other cities and sent to clinics.

In recent days, the security forces have stabilized poppy cultivation fields in different parts of the country, and thousands of acres of land where poppy was cultivated have been destroyed so far.

The Islamic Emirate is committed to eradicating addiction in the country and ending poppy cultivation, and it follows this commitment seriously.

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