UK Dragging Its Feet on Kabul Embassy Staff Evacuation Amid Reports of 'Torture'

In August 2021, the UK wrapped up its troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, evacuating 15,000 people in the two weeks that followed the Taliban's* takeover of Kabul. London, however, has repeatedly been slammed for leaving behind scores of allied Afghans who were eligible for relocation to the UK.

Almost a year after the completion of the evacuation of British nationals and allied Afghans from Afghanistan, the UK appears to be in no hurry to evacuate the rest amid reports that some of them have been beaten or tortured by the Taliban.

More than 150 men who worked at the British embassy in Afghanistan are thought to still live in the South Asian country, with the BBC reporting that Taliban militants had cracked down on a number of those individuals.

“I was sitting outside when gunmen approached me, one of [them] attacked me. They said you were working for the British embassy. They started beating me and they threw me on the ground. They attacked me again and again,” the broadcaster quoted one of the unnamed men as claiming.

The claims came after the UK government said earlier this week that those men would be able to apply to come to the UK as of 20 June as part of its Afghan citizens resettlement scheme (ACRS), which mainly aims to help those who assisted the UK efforts in Afghanistan.

The scheme was officially launched in January 2022, but application requests can only be submitted from next week, with critics describing the efforts as “too little, too late”, according to the BBC.

The critics also lashed out at a separate government scheme, the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP), which aims to relocate those who were employed directly by the British government, including interpreters who helped the UK military.

The BBC cited an unnamed Afghan who came to the UK earlier this year under ARAP as saying that many of his former colleagues from the embassy have yet to be relocated from Afghanistan.

“I feel like the British have been disloyal. They made a promise - these men worked hard for them and now their lives are at risk,” the man noted.

UK's Pullout From Afghanistan a 'Disaster'

The remarks followed a parliamentary report in late May that the Britain’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan last year was a "disaster" and a "betrayal" that would “damage the UK’s interests for years to come”.

The cross-party House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, which conducted the probe, argued that the “disaster” was caused by "systemic failures" of intelligence, diplomacy and planning and preparation. According to the panel’s chairman Tom Tugendhat, there had been a failure to lead "at a time when lives were quite literally being lost".

In the reports, MPs expressed concern over the UK’s evacuation efforts, arguing that in particular there was a “total absence of a plan for evacuating Afghans who over the years had supported the UK mission”.

“The hasty effort to select those eligible for evacuation was poorly devised, managed, and staffed; and the department failed to perform the most basic crisis-management functions. […] In broader terms the evacuation — once it began — suffered from serious and avoidable failings, many of them the responsibility of the [Foreign Office],” according to the document.

The UK's evacuation mission in Afghanistan wrapped up on 28 August 2021, two days before the US completed its troop withdrawal from the war-torn nation, in line with the 31 August deadline previously set by President Joe Biden. The Taliban has been in power in Afghanistan since 15 August, when the militant group entered the capital Kabul without a fight following a months-long offensive amid the US and NATO troop pullout.

*organisation under UN sanctions for terrorist activities