Six EU states want migrant returns to war-torn Afghanistan

Local Afghan security forces, which have been trained and equipped by Western military allies in the last decades, have been overwhelmed by the Taliban's campaign.

The return of the Taliban, which was ousted in 2001 after the Islamist attacks in New York, has prompted fears of a new surge in migrants coming to Europe.

But in a letter dated 5 August, the interior ministers of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands urged the EU's executive to "intensify talks" with the Afghan government to ensure that the forced return of failed asylum seekers would continue.

The government in Kabul, however, last month asked the EU to suspend "non-voluntary returns" for three months as the Taliban offensive rages.

After Kabul's appeal, Sweden and Finland halted forced deportations to Afghanistan, prompting concerns in other EU countries.

"We would like to highlight the urgent need to perform returns, both voluntary and non-voluntary, to Afghanistan," the six EU ministers wrote to the commission.

"Stopping returns sends the wrong signal and is likely to motivate even more Afghan citizens to leave their home for the EU," they added.

Asked if Afghanistan was a safe place on Tuesday, a commission spokesperson said it was up to each EU country to make an "individual assessment of whether a return is possible."

An EU official said the bloc was not facing an imminent major influx of migrants.

"We're nowhere near a migratory crisis," the official said, who was quoted by the Associated Press.

"Given the context, it is hard to imagine that we would conduct forced return operations for the moment," the official also noted, adding that around 1,200 Afghans have been deported from EU nations this year.

Most of them went willingly, with 200 having been forced to go.

However, the six EU countries argued that halting returns "sends the wrong signal" and is likely to motivate more Afghans to leave their homes.

The countries urged the commission to keep talking to the Afghan government and insisting on continued forced returns.

The issue is likely to be discussed at an emergency meeting of EU home affairs ministers on 18 August, which will mainly focus on the surge of migrants crossing from Belarus to EU members Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.

The International Organisation for Migration (IMO) said in a statement that 359,000 people have been newly displaced this year due to the fighting in Afghanistan.

Over 5 million people were already displaced internally.

The head of the IMO, Antonio Vitorino, said he was "extremely concerned by the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, particularly the impact on mobile and displaced populations, including returnees."

He added that Afghanistan was "in the throes of a third wave of Covid-19 and a severe drought," leaving almost half the population in need of emergency assistance.

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.

Belgium's state secretary for asylum and migration, Sammy Mahdi, defended the letter, which met with criticism.

"That regions of a country are unsafe does not mean that each national of that country automatically is entitled to protection," he said on Twitter.

Afghans in 2020 made up 10.6 percent of asylum seekers in the EU, or just over 44,000 out of some 416,000 requests, the second largest behind Syrians on 15.2 percent, according to EU data, AFP reported.