The federal government has made a dramatic U-turn on its refusal to supply help to a crew of 125 Afghan guards who protected the British embassy in Kabul, and has promised they are going to all be granted the correct to enter the UK.
The choice adopted rising criticism of the federal government’s rejection of functions for assist for all of the Afghan nationwide members of the embassy safety crew, as a result of they’d been employed by an outsourced contractor.
The Guardian reported on Thursday that many of the 125-member safety crew had been knowledgeable they have been ineligible for the UK’s emergency evacuation scheme as a result of they’d been employed by the worldwide safety agency GardaWorld, slightly than being “instantly employed by her majesty’s authorities”.
The guards, lots of whom have labored on the embassy for greater than 10 years, had additionally been given casual discover that they now not had jobs now that the Kabul embassy has closed.
On Friday night, a UK authorities spokesperson mentioned that call had been overruled.
“We’ll assist all these Afghan safety guards contracted by GardaWorld to guard the embassy. They are going to be granted the correct to enter the UK and we are actually working by the difficult logistics of getting them out of Kabul,” the spokesperson mentioned.
Earlier within the day the armed forces minister, James Heappey, had preemptively steered that the guards had already been dropped at Kabul airport on Friday morning to be evacuated.
“My understanding is that the GardaWorld convoy, which is the contractors you might be referring to, arrived at Kabul airport and they’re certainly within the strategy of being evacuated,” he instructed BBC Radio 4’s As we speak programme. Requested why was their passage was ever unsure, he replied: “I don’t know.”
Heappey might have been referring to a GardaWorld operation to evacuate a number of hundred expat workers, some British staff and a few Indian and Nepalese ex-Gurkhas.
A number of guards expressed dismay that it was being reported on the BBC that they’d been taken by convoy to the airport for an evacuation flight.
“That’s not true. Now we have had no information of an evacuation,” the crew’s Kabul-based supervisor mentioned. One of many guards mentioned he remained in hiding in Kabul and had had no contact both from British officers or from GardaWorld, the corporate which employed the guards on contract to the embassy. “Nobody has been despatched to escort us to the airport,” he mentioned.
The guards mentioned they have been involved that their highly-visible work for the British embassy would make them simply identifiable targets for the Taliban, and mentioned they’d no religion within the Taliban guarantees of an amnesty for individuals who had labored for international organisations.
The announcement that they’d be helped to go away Afghanistan got here late on Friday evening, and it was not clear whether or not the guards had been knowledgeable that they have been now eligible for help in leaving the nation.
The method of learn how to get them to the airport the place a small crew of British officers remains to be issuing visas isn’t more likely to be easy – and there’s not a lot time earlier than the evacuation flights are set to be suspended. Armed forces minister Heappey mentioned earlier that it may not be attainable to evacuate everybody, warning that flights may finish as quickly as Sunday.
A neighborhood GardaWorld supervisor was requested at midnight on Thursday evening by London-based colleagues to place collectively the names and passport particulars of all of the Afghan-national workers who’ve labored on the British embassy contract. “I’ve shared many lists, many instances. This could all have been carried out weeks in the past. We’re ready for a response,” he mentioned.
Oliver Westmacott, the president of GardaWorld’s Center East operations, mentioned workers have been “working around the clock now with the FCDO to get all our native workers processed and hopefully out”.