MONITORING (SW) The former vice president of Afghanistan, Sarwar Danish and 13 family members have arrived in New Zealand after the Government granted them resettlement.
The Stuff reported that that Sarwar Danish – the second vice president in the administration of Afghanistan’s former president, Ashraf Ghani – flew into Auckland around Christmas with his wife, two sons and three daughters.
Sources say two of Danish’s daughters and one of his sons brought their spouses, and four children between them.
Associate immigration minister Phil Twyford confirmed that “Sarwar Danish and his family have been given safe haven in New Zealand”.
Danish, a member of Afghanistan’s ethnic Hazara minority, fled Kabul for Turkey along with other senior officials on August 16, shortly after the Taliban entered the capital.
Speaking to Stuff this week from an MIQ hotel, one of his family confirmed that Danish and his family members had arrived in New Zealand from Turkey.
Stuff contacted Danish at another MIQ hotel, however he speaks limited English and was not able to answer questions.
The arrival of Danish and his family comes after Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi ruled out reopening resettlement applications for Afghans who worked with New Zealand during the war in Afghanistan – some of whom are at risk of reprisals from the Taliban.
The Government announced the resettlement process after the Taliban seized power, but applications were closed on August 25.
The decision to accept the former vice-president and 13 family members has provoked confusion and anger among local Afghans that Stuff has spoken to, including a number who served with the New Zealand Defence Force.
An Afghan member of the New Zealand SAS unit based in Kabul from 2009-2012 said Afghans who worked with the NZDF should have been prioritised for resettlement – not people like Danish, who he said shared responsibility for the collapse of Afghanistan’s government.
“It’s very frustrating that someone from the corrupt leadership of Afghanistan – with zero connection to New Zealand – has been resettled in this country, when people who directly supported the New Zealand SAS have been left behind,” he said.
“He was already safe in Turkey, so it would be hard to understand if Kiwi taxpayers are paying for Danish and his family to start a new life in New Zealand.”
Other Afghans with links to the New Zealand SAS told Stuff that Colonel Abdul Ghaffar Hotak, the former deputy commander of the Afghan government’s Crisis Response Unit, which the SAS trained and fought with from 2009-2012, had been recently killed by the Taliban.
One Afghan described Hotak as a highly professional and trustworthy officer who worked closely with SAS troopers and was “a very noble person.”
He said it was “shameful and disgraceful” that Danish and his family members had been resettled in New Zealand when men like Hotak had been abandoned.
In his statement, Twyford said that Danish’s position on human rights was a factor in his admission to New Zealand.
Twyford said the Government had provided safe haven to around 200 Afghans whose lives were at extreme risk from the Taliban. That included female judges, journalists, human rights workers, NGO leaders, women’s rights advocates, LGBTQI, “and some politicians who stood up for human rights like Sarwar Danish”.
Tens of thousands of Afghans who fled Kabul as the Taliban took over are currently in countries without visas to stay there. Twyford said that some of the Afghans who New Zealand has supported had come from third-party countries where they had no visas allowing them to stay.
ENDS
