KABUL (SW): Amnesty International has noted that the number of Afghans forcefully deported by European countries to Afghanistan nearly tripled in 2016 to 9,460 from 3,290 in 2015.
In its new report Forced Back to Danger: Asylum-Seekers Returned from Europe to Afghanistan, Amnesty International details harrowing cases of Afghans who have been returned from Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany only to be killed, injured in bomb attacks, or left to live in constant fear of being persecuted for their sexual orientation or conversion to Christianity. Citing the official EU statistics, the report has noted that the number of Afghans returned by European countries to Afghanistan nearly tripled in 2016 to 9,460 from 3,290 in 2015.
Horia Mosadiq, Amnesty International’s Afghanistan Researcher, has said the deal between the Afghan government and the European countries on the side-lines of Brussels Conference has also played a key role in triggering mass deportation. She urged the EU to consider the volatile situation in Afghanistan, and halt the review their decision.
She added the returnees’ lives are not safe in Afghanistan. Horia Mosadiq added that the behavior of European countries towards the refugees is not uniform, and threats of kidnapping and murder are persistent in Afghanistan. She stressed that considering the situation in Afghanistan, the forceful expulsion of refugees must halt, and the Afghan government shall not cooperate with the EU on this matter.
Hafiz Miakhil, spokesman for the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriates, said in this connection that the problems do exist in this regard. He, however, said the numbers of repatriating Afghans from the EU has not gone up. Officials at Amnesty International said the report has been prepared in nine months after talks with twenty asylum seekers and three families who have returned to Afghanistan from different European countries.
