KABUL, Dec 14 (Asia Free Press): The US and other western countries have evacuated thousands of educated and qualified Afghan professionals during the last four months after the Taliban seized power in Kabul in mid-August this year.
According to local Afghan officials and experts, over one million Afghans have left the country and moved to Iran, US, Europe, Turkey, and Central Asian Republics, and Pakistan.
“An Iranian diplomat in Kabul told me that they issued around 300,000 visas to Afghan nationals during last five months,” a professor in Kabul told Asia Free Press (AFP), with a request to not mention his name due to security.
The Americans also evacuated nearly 130,000, mainly its citizens and Afghans who worked with its forces and organisations during the last 20 years conflict.
While the European countries also evacuated thousand of Afghans and still the evacuation process is continued, according to the local officials in Kabul.
The experts in Kabul believed that the US and other western countries removing the educated and professional Afghans to put the new Taliban government into trouble to run their affairs smoothly.
“So far mostly professionals, engineers, doctors, IT experts, bankers, lawyers and people from other sectors have got visas and they left the country,” another professor of a private university in Kabul said and adding west want to fail the Taliban government as without professional no government could run.
However, the Taliban are optimistic about running their new government affairs smoothly. Thousands of educated and professional people have returned to their jobs after the Taliban took over.
“We already have experts and professional in all departments and I am sure our government will run smoothly,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.
However, he added that we are not happy over the massive migration as these people face a huge problem in western countries.
Taliban supreme leader asks the government to stop the flow of migration
Last week, the Afghan Taliban supreme leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhunzda directed its government officials to stop the ongoing flow of migration from the country.
“Those Afghans who are willing to leave the country on pretext of political or economic problems and some others who are planning to move to the Western countries along with their young children and women, encounter various security, moral and other humanitarian problems due to various reasons, including facing unpleasant circumstances in journey and in camps that upset relatives and ordinary Afghans,” said the Taliban chief in a statement.
He added that many Afghans obtaining a residence permit provide false and counterfeit documents, i.e. against Islam.
“Professional expertise of some individuals instead of being used for prosperity and development of the country, is being wasted on doing ordinary and even some minor employment,” he said. He directed his governors to meet with all those Afghans planning to leave the country and resolve the issues they were facing.
Economic crisis compels people to leave Afghanistan
However, the experts believe that the current economic crisis has been created under a plan by the western countries to compel the educated class to leave their country.
“I think there are two reason behind the current economic crisis, first to create chaos, spreading a fear among the public that Taliban are unable to run the country and second, that chaos will compel the educated class to leave for better future,” a local journalist in Kabul said.
The US has succeeded in its plan. They created a huge economic crisis in Afghanistan after blocking the country central bank foreign reserves in August, soon after the Taliban took power, he added.
“Now peace slowly returning but these economic crisis not allow the locals to enjoy peace after 20 year of long conflict,” he said.
On August 17, the US blocked over $9 billion of the country’s central bank reserves while compelling several donors and organisations, like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to suspend payments.
Several countries, including China, Russia, Pakistan, and Qatar, have urged the US to provide Afghanistan access to its foreign reserves, but no concrete steps have been taken thus far.
Taliban officials also accused Washington of causing the economic crisis and said the US now get revenge from ordinary Afghans after a humiliating defeat in Afghanistan.
“The US action to blocked our funds are against the all international laws but no one is asking them that why they [Washington] violated the international laws and pushed million Afghan citizens into humanitarian crisis,” Zabihullah Mujahid said.
Non-Pashtuns migrants
The majority of migrants leaving Afghanistan are non-Pashtuns; going abroad after their top leaders fled the country following the Taliban seized the country, including all provinces in northern Afghanistan, where the majority of ethnic Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara are living.
“We are observing that majority of ethnic Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek and other are leaving the country as they lost power in Kabul and all their leaders fled away from here,” Maiwand, a resident of Kabul, who requested to use his last name because of the current security situation.
“We are happy in Kabul as now there is no restrictions on Pashtuns while earlier we were facing a lot of problems while speaking Pashto in Kabul,” he claimed and said despite Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani, who were Pashtun President. However, all power rested with Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazaras community leaders.
Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, constituting around 48% of the country’s total population.
In the Taliban government, most of their leaders are Pashtuns, but still, several leaders on key positions, including deputy prime minister, is Tajik. However, others are from the Uzbek and Hazara communities.
