NAMIBIA has opted not to take in refugees from Afghanistan following the Taliban’s lightning-quick seizure of Kabul, the country’s capital city.
This was yesterday revealed by executive director of international relations and cooperation Penda Naanda.
The Taliban has swept Kabul and took power on 15 August after the government collapsed and president Ashraf Ghani fled the country.
This came after the United States (US) started withdrawing the bulk of its remaining troops from the country last month.
“The ministry has received a request to take in refugees from Afghanistan, yes, but Namibia is not taking in any Afghan refugees at the moment,” Naanda said, without indicating the reason for this decision.
Namibia’s government, however, calls on the international community to extend all possible support to those Afghans who may be at risk.
Naanda said Namibia follows with deep concern the developments currently unfolding in Afghanistan.
“Namibia calls on all parties to exercise the utmost restraint to protect lives and to ensure that humanitarian needs are being provided, to respect the rule of law and international humanitarian law, and to abstain from resorting to violence,” he said.
Therefore, the country calls for the respect and protection of the rights of women and girls, including the rights to education and employment, he says.
“Namibia encourages the political leadership of the government of Afghanistan, the leaders of the Taliban, and all stakeholders to enter into an inclusive dialogue and to establish a peace process or framework agreement that will resolve the hostilities and restore the constitutional order and democratic governance of the country,” Naanda said.
He said they are not aware of any Namibian residing in Afghanistan or being harmed in the country.
Naanda said the United Nations Security Council and the Human Rights Council are currently addressing the situation, and Namibia has made its position clear with the Human Rights Council.
“… whose efforts are fully supported by Namibia as a member of that body,” he said.
Countries like Spain have taken up to 4 000 Afghans, and Northern Virginia, Mexico, and Iran have registered nearly 800 000 refugees.
At least two million more are unregistered.
CNN reported that the US carried out an airstrike in Kabul in the last 48 hours, targeting suspected Isis-K suicide bombers who posed an “imminent” threat to the airport.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reported that the attack comes a day after the US forces launched a second drone attack in Afghanistan after Thursday’s suicide bombing at the airport, which left nearly 200 people dead.
At least 13 US troops were among those killed.
International donors, including the World Bank and the European Union froze funding to Afghanistan shortly afterwards.
The US, Germany and Japan, along with other countries, have been evacuating more than 100 thousand Afghans from the country, while about 500 Russian motorised troops are carrying out drills in the mountains of Tajikistan.
The Taliban last Tuesday said all foreign evacuations from the country must be completed by today.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has raised humanitarian concerns, labelling it as the “largest humanitarian operation in the world” as evacuations continue.
“With the 18,4 million people in need of humanitarian assistance … our ability to bring aid in to respond to that need has been blocked, because all commercial aircraft have been stopped coming in to the [Kabul] airport,” Rick Brennan, acting regional emergency director for the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean office told Al Jazeera from Cairo.
“We have 500 tonnes of medicine and supplies in our logistics hub in Dubai that would usually have come in last week, even prior to current events, and we’ve been trying for days and days now to transport them in. But that’s not been possible,” he said.