As Taliban Advances, Europe Fears an Afghan Migration Crisis

Every day sees more Afghan refugees reach Turkey after a grueling trek across Iran. As far as they’re concerned their journey is far from over — they want to get to the countries of the European Union — for them the Promised Land. But it is a land that is unwilling to accept them and is making plans to deter them from arriving. Around 2,000 Afghans a day are entering Turkey, and migration experts expect the numbers to surge as the Taliban seizes control of more of Afghanistan. The Taliban is currently besieging three major cities in south and west Afghanistan to add to the rapid rural gains it has made in recent weeks in the wake of the decision by the Biden administration to withdraw US troops from the country. Almost all NATO troops will be gone by September. Few observers believe the Afghan government will be able to hold out and last week a Pentagon watchdog warned that the country's government will likely face an “existential crisis.” The Afghans making their way through Iran to Turkey are voting with their feet, fearful of what a Taliban future of strict Islamic rule will hold for them. Most arriving at the Turkish borders are single men, and many are uneducated, but hope to secure settlement in Europe and for their families to join them later, say migration groups.

Turkey the Gatekeeper European leaders are preparing for a new migration crisis and are negotiating another multi-year migration deal with Turkey to get Ankara to block Afghan and other asylum-seekers from heading their way. It would be a renewal of a five-year deal struck in 2016 that saw the EU pay Ankara billions of dollars to curb irregular migration towards Europe, improve the living conditions of refugees in Turkey, and foster legal migration through official resettlement schemes. “The 2016 agreement had a significant impact on limiting the number of arrivals” in the EU, according to Daniele Albanese of Caritas Italiana, a non-profit and the charitable arm of the Italian Bishops Conference. “While nearly 861.630 people reached Greece in 2015, that number dropped to 36, 310 the following year,” she noted in a commentary for the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, a think tank. But she warns that a “political approach that does not take into consideration the needs of the refugee population deserving a better life is far from a long-term, durable solution.” No repeat of 2015