Since the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan nearly a year ago, Germany has pledged to take in a total of 23,614 former Afghan NATO personnel and their families. So far, 17,556 people have entered the country, the vast majority being family members of Afghan officials. On Sunday, August 6, the newspaper Welt am Sonntag writes, citing data from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF).

According to published information, excluding their family members, the number of Afghan translators and other employees of the Bundeswehr and NATO structures who have received permission to enter Germany is 5,141 people. 3756 of them are already in Germany.

Compared to other European countries, Germany received significantly more Afghans, writes Welt am Sonntag. For example, 10,100 Afghans working in British structures and their families entered the UK, the publication reports, citing information from the British Embassy in Germany. So far, Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued 1,218 “limited territorial validity” visas to Afghan citizens, and 278 people have arrived in the country as part of humanitarian corridors.

Learn lessons for the future

In early July, the Bundestag commission set up to investigate Afghanistan began its work. It should shed light on the events of the summer of 2021. The question of the fate of Afghan officials who are still waiting for the opportunity to leave for Germany must also be resolved. In addition, the German parliament has established a commission whose task is to carry out a thorough analysis of the feasibility of the nearly 20-year-old Bundeswehr mission in the Hindu Kush and, based on the results of that examination, draw lessons for the future for other international operations.

The Bundeswehr left Afghanistan in June 2021 – following the decision of the United States and NATO to withdraw their contingent from this country – and earlier than originally planned. In August, the radical Islamic Taliban came to power in Kabul. They encountered virtually no resistance from the Afghan armed forces, to whose training the Bundeswehr also contributed. Germany then participated in an international operation to evacuate civilians from Afghanistan. In the chaos and panic that arose due to the cancellation of scheduled flights at the airport in the Afghan capital in the second half of August, when many people tried to leave the country, several dozen people died.

Many Afghans who have worked in NATO structures and who have not been able to leave their homeland fear for their lives, as the Islamists may take revenge on them. Human rights activists criticized the fact that people considered traitors in radical Afghan circles were not evacuated from the country before the Taliban regained power there.