What Is Pakistan’s Stand On Accepting Afghan Evacuees!

Away from their home, their own homeland under grave crisis. Rather saying peril danger won’t be too unjust or incorrect. At millions of miles away from anything called safety, comfort, or the psychological ease of knowing that ‘things are fine!’ Just how does the average Afghani who is not in Afghanistan but is, nonetheless, following updates about what is happening back home in a country that has certainly seen better days in the past cope with all this pressure?

A country that had to deal with Taliban and had, at least, the support of Western- if at all- fighting forces is today under the clutches of the tyranny of terror that is called the Taliban, keen to establish a regime that will leave no stone unturned in its total domination of Afghanistan, hence a rule of the iron-fist, you can suppose.

It’s dark, it’s painful, it’s riddled by an almost endless sense of emotional and mental discomfort and moreover, one doesn’t quite know when might things take a turn for the better?

Can there be anything, one is compelled to ask, better in life than knowing that one’s future is safeguarded and that things in the imminent future will be fine? No, right?

Yet, this is precisely the thing that the average Afghan doesn’t have the privilege of having.

Then comes the question of what might happen to the fate of those who have already been safely evacuated from Afghanistan?

Of course, needless to say that different countries would deal with those they have helped evacuate safely, differently and as they say, each to their own- right?

How might a Pakistan deal with the Afghan evacuees? Just how well can Pakistan be expected to treat those it safely evacuated from the wartorn country, with a currently despicable Talibani regime at the helm of its affairs?

If you are someone who has wanted to know about this particular question then please be informed of the following, for it’s very vital to know:

The Pakistan government has decided to accept evacuees from Afghanistan — mostly transiting passengers to stay for a limited period — only in capital Islamabad, dropping plans of using Karachi and Lahore as two other transport bases, according to a media report on Saturday. The US embassy here had requested the Pakistan government to help in the evacuation efforts ahead of the August 31 deadline to completely withdraw from Afghanistan to cap its longest foreign war, spanning over 20 years after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. Officials said that the Embassy sought permission for landing or transiting the passengers under three categories: US diplomats/citizens, Afghan nationals and people from other countries.

Also Read – How Is Finland Doing Its Bit For Afghanistan?

About 4,000 people, including the Afghans who supported the NATO forces during the war, were expected to be brought to Karachi and Islamabad for stay before being flown to the US. However, official sources told the Geo News that the federal government would be using Karachi and Lahore airports only as standby options, restricting the entry of the Afghan evacuees to only Islamabad. The transit passengers would be present in Islamabad only for a few hours, before being flown to pre-decided countries.