Germany and 14 other European Union, EU, countries have pledged to take in some 40,000 people from Afghanistan.
Ylva Johansson, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, said this after a meeting with EU interior ministers.
“15 EU member states have pledged to give protection to almost 40,000 Afghans.
“This goes hand in hand with better measures to deal with irregular migration and how we move forward on “MigrationEU.”
Johansson said Germany alone was ready to accept 25,000 refugees from Afghanistan.
According to the EU Commission, the 15 member countries have already evacuated around 28,000 people from Afghanistan in the past few months.
The 40,000 now mentioned are additional evacuees and the figure is actually 38,146.
A total of 60,000 Afghans accepted admission places in EU countries for 2021 and 2022.
However, this number does not only apply to Afghanistan.
Around two thirds of the 60,000 are earmarked for Afghans needing protection.
After the Taliban came to power at the end of August, the EU states decided not to make any concrete commitments to accept people from Afghanistan for the time being.
According to him, that was to avoid creating incentives for illegal migration and now the current situation in Afghanistan is dramatic.
He said the country was suffering from one of the worst droughts in two decades.
“The economy was battered before the Taliban came to power and is now in free fall.”
According to the UN, more than half of the population does not have enough to eat.
dpa/NAN
