In August 15 the efforts to help a group of people to escape from Afghanistan begun.
The human rights 360o team spoke with Manos Moschopoulos from the open security foundations, who said that he could ensure a first financial contribution if the Greek government would accept the people from Afghanistan in its territory.
Minister Mitarachi has previously stated that Greece would not accept any refugees from Afghanistan, which were in line with other European governments and the EU, so it was considered highly unlikely that it would accept the offer of the human rights 360o team, but they had nothing to lose so they tried to communicate with the ministry of foreign affairs. The correspondence that they had with the ministry of foreign affairs was positive and it turned out that they had a number of people who were their associates and whom they had not been able to bring in Greece.
Thus, after contacting both the Prime Minister’s Office and the Secretary General for Equality, they concluded that, if they could have a credible plan, with people of increased vulnerability, including those of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they could get the permit to start the transfer.The main issue at that point, was to find people on the ground, to coordinate the list. This important role was taken over by a member of parliament from the list, Z.K., a very militant and active personality who is now safe in Greece.
Most of the evacuees were in Kabul, but they also had people in Mazar and elsewhere, in a country with very long distances. They finally came up with a list of 151 women, MPs, athletes, journalists, activists. That list, the members of their families were also added, in addition to the embassy staff. By August 20, they had received the approval for this list from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.After that we divided them into groups of 40-50 people, so that they could be transported by bus and other means to the airport. In each group there was a focal point, usually an MP, who ensured that all needed papers, passport numbers, etc. were available. All the above needed to be done in complete secrecy so as not to arouse suspicion from the Taliban. They saw that the situation was deteriorating rapidly, so an actual race started. Luckily, they had the valuable support of the American Εmbassy in Athens. They managed to charter two planes through a Romanian airline company, get the flight and landing licenses – you understand we are talking about procedures unprecedented for us during a state of war – as they stated and they managed to schedule a flight for August 26th.
The groups mentioned previously had to move very carefully to the airport, they were carrying nothing but some plastic bags with the absolutely essentials so that, if they were stopped by the blocks, the Taliban would not understand that they were heading to the airport. The women had to be fully covered and appear to be accompanied by men so as not to arouse any suspicion. Imagine an hour-long journey from Kabul to the airport lasted 8 hours because the rest of the country and the perimeter of the airport were controlled by the Taliban who had checkpoints everywhere.
On August 16th the bombing at the airport happened and the planes on their way, turned back. The insurance companies withdrew the insurances that were required to fly a plane and so they found themselves at a dead end.Some of their people managed to leave with flights with destination to other countries because they were already inside the airport and their names were already on the manifest list.
Unfortunately, most of them were stuck there.
At this point begun the next effort, which was made by land through neighbour countries. A group came out of Iran, but then this possibility was also closed. Some went through Pakistan, but the women MPs feared that Pakistan would be more dangerous for them.
Finally, they used the opportunity to escape by road through Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, where things were a little easier. From there, they traveled to Northern Macedonia and finally to Greece.
The huge moral dilemmas that the team had to face were really difficult because they had to choose between people and determine who were to be saved and the possibility of someone getting killed or arrested was also existent.
In the end, everyone does its best to save people and the huge moral dilemmas that teams face should not be a burden to civil society organisations. Adequate authorities should also act to help those in need.
