This measure is a test of the goodwill of the Taliban, which have committed to the international community to leave their compatriots who wish if they have valid visas.
Le Monde with AFP
It’s a breach that opens again for all Afghans who hope to run their country soon. With the reopening, Wednesday, October 6, from the passport service in Kabul, they were hundreds to have rushed to the offices, closed since the Taliban Power by the mid-August, to file an application.
This reopening is a test of the goodwill of the Taliban, which have committed to the international community to let their compatriots leave with valid visas that would like it.
“I try to run away,” says Mohammad Hanif, 32, who says he worked as an interpreter for the US special forces in the southern province of the Helmand between 2009 and 2013.
Mohammad is afraid that the Taliban seek to take revenge, as many Afghans who collaborated with foreign troops, after the 2001 intervention of an international coalition led by the United States which had made it possible to chase Islamists from the to be able to. “I’m stressed,” he adds in English. It is also because I live in the province of Helmand, who is very dangerous. (…) I stay in Kabul, because people do not know me here. C That’s why I’m here. “
Mohammad started the steps to get a passport four months ago, but he had to wait, Wednesday, to file his complete request, and he now hopes to get the precious document in a few days. He says he holds a special immigration visa (SIV) for the United States and intends to live there with his wife and two children.
Ability to issue 6,000 passports per day
Like thousands of other Afghans, he tried to flee through Kabul airport in the days that followed the arrival of the Taliban in power on August 15. But in the widespread coh of these days, he had not managed to access the airport. “There was a lot of people. I did not succeed” getting into the airport, “he says.
A gigantic air bridge has evacuated more than 120,000 foreigners and Afghans wanting to flee the new plan in the last two weeks of August, before the departure of the latest American soldiers from the country, 30.
The Taliban attempts to revive the administrative machine, while the officials have, for the most part, not paid for months. The head of the passport service, Alam Gul Haqqani, assured that his employees had received their salaries. “Men and women’s employees are back at work,” he said. According to him, his service is able to deliver 6,000 passports a day and to cope with the request.