Exodus from Afghanistan, tour buses with German license plates await Afghans seeking refugee status in Germany, uncertain economy in Afghanistan to blame per UN report, plus perception of open borders in Europe, pictures of Germans welcoming foreigners. 'Problem is that idea has prevailed that foreigners were responsible for solving our problems' says Afghan educator

10/31/15, "Refugees from Afghanistan with the coach into the unknown," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,  Friederike Böge, Kabul, google translation from German

Image caption: "Kabul: Afghans are snake, to apply for a passport." Andrew Quilty, NY Times photo

"At the train station of Kabul thousands after Germany break up, they see no future in their country. Terror and hopelessness drives Afghans to flee - but many make it only to Iran."

"The journey to a new life begins on a dusty road in the South of the Afghan capital. Red and green flashing advertising signs of the guest houses in the dark. In the shops, people dozens of are criss -cross on the bare floor. It is just past midnight at the Kabul bus station "Company". Outside the empty coaches are available in two long rows. "Hannover Airport. Your direct connection" is on one of the vehicles. As most of the buses that travel on Afghanistan's roads, have also this here German license plates and advertising slogans of German tour operators.

A bus from the resin is Wali Barakzai, a taciturn man, wrapped in a blanket and smokes. He sold the tickets for the trip to the province of Nimruz, near the Iranian border. Earlier, not many people wanted then, except drug trafficking there not much there. But it has increasingly since the spring. "Today 50 buses to Nimruz", said Barakzai. "Already the smugglers wait there, to bring the people over the border." 4,000 people would be on the day at around 80 seats per bus. A few weeks ago, it was temporarily even 90 buses, the fare was increased by 50 percent, because there were so many interested parties.

But now it has become cold, the weather is always more difficult more volatile and the route via Iran, Turkey, Greece and further north. The journey by land costs between 4000 and 7000 dollars. There are three border crossings only, then the European Union has reached. Some make it in two weeks after Germany; others are two years on the road, because they need to make money on the way to pay for the next stage. Others fall back Iranian guards in the hands. Also on the way back from Nimruz, the buses are so full. 250,000 Afghans attacked Iran in the past year, deported many in the border area with Turkey, and in her home country.

In the North the Taliban, in the East of the "IS"

 

At once it will honk loud and hectic, the bus driver and let their engines Rev from the guest houses pushing people with hand suitcases and bundles. "We want first of all to Tehran," one passenger says. "When there is work, we remain. Otherwise we continue in Turkey." He is traveling with a group of 19 people, including six children. He has no fear, that something might happen to them? "Kunduz is dangerous," he says and rushes off.

Many come in the moment from the North, confirmed Juma Khan, who runs one of the guest houses. Especially since the Taliban had briefly captured the provincial capital Kunduz four weeks ago. But also from the East of the country, there are thousands on the run. There is a terrorist group 'Islamic State' is called, spread fear and terror in the past few months. In the province of Nangarhar, she deported one hundred tribal elders; She blew up twelve of them on camera in the air. Unabridged, the video was broadcast on Afghan television. Almost everyone has seen it. Jalalabad wool attacked before three weeks finally circulated rumors that the 'Islamic State', the largest city in the East. 

Young elite disappointed by the change of Government

 

"It all started with the new Government", says Juma Khan, the guest house owner at the bus station. President Ashraf Ghani and his election opponent Abdullah Abdullah on a coalition agreed a year ago. First, there was hope that it will go up now. Just the modern elite of the country, the young, educated people who had studied in the years of Western intervention, put on Ghani. The technocrat had promised them jobs and building a modern State apparatus. But since then little progress has been made. The Government is eaten up by internal power struggles. Cracking failed in efforts for a peace process. The President is isolated and embittered. The aid for Afghanistan is rapidly dropped - and with them the number of jobs.

"Uncertainty about Afghanistan's economic prospects, fears of a turn from the international community and a growing threat move many young and well-educated Afghans to leave their country", according to an analysis of the United Nations, which is currently handed out at European embassies in Kabul. One of the triggers was the exodus of the Syrians to Europe, which "contributed to the perception of open borders in Europe". The images of the welcoming culture at the German stations were added. Many Afghans know the number projected by the Federal Government in the meantime of 800,000 refugees this year; just many got it wrong: you think Germany to cut 800,000 Afghans this year. As it hardly helps that the German Ambassador Markus Potzel currently regularly occurs on Afghan television. There, he tells smugglers are criminals, Afghanistan needed its young professionals, Germany remain on the side of Afghanistan's, and only one-third of all asylum claims by Afghans was successful. Nevertheless, he gets calls from Afghan Government officials, who want to emigrate to Germany with his help. And the Embassy's Facebook page comments can be found on reports about a tightening of German asylum law as: "How I apply for Asylum Permit please?" 
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The exodus has become a self-reinforcing vortex. Young people disappear from its class weekly classmates come at noon with the plan to go home to pack their belongings. "My brother, he's 16, can concentrate hard on the school", says a young woman in Mazar-i-Sharif. "We are afraid that he is away at some point easy." And a father in Jalalabad reported his son threatened him, either to join the 'Islamic State' or to go to Europe. There are people who can count on three dozen in its immediate neighbourhood which had disappeared in the past two months. Others say: "most of my friends are already gone."

Unlike as in Syria are threatened the people of Afghanistan not by barrel bombs that destroy entire neighborhoods. The threats are sublime. There is for example the young man from Kabul, which has translated texts from the American magazine "Foreign policy" on Pashto for an Afghan newspaper and now regularly receives threatening phone calls from the Taliban. Then list the names and addresses of his parents and siblings in a rural area he, which is controlled by the Taliban. There is the UN staff, which was a CD with the murder video of the "Islamic State" on his doorstep, with the note, he would be the next. Almost every government employee can tell such stories. And there are about one hundred Afghan staff of German organisations from Kunduz, struggling after the taking of the city by the Taliban now, to leave with their families after Germany. Photos, which show them and their children, their addresses and telephone numbers, this has all come with their corporate computers into the hands of extremists.

The Federal Government is facing a dilemma. On the one hand, the threat situation in Kunduz is hard to doubt. On the other hand that would cripple the more development aid in the province indefinitely - right now, where it depends on Germany to put characters. Also, it is important that the German camp in Mazar-i-Sharif, other than first planned not to the end of the year to the Afghan security forces is passed. "This would be been considered otherwise by the Afghans as a reaction to the fall of Kunduz", according to Mazar. The effect can be as devastating if foreigners pull back, became apparent in August, when the Agency for international cooperation for the kidnapping of a German aid worker overnight withdrew all international staff from Kabul. Among the 3000 Afghan employees, this was considered as a sign that's now final downhill to go with her country. "Many Afghans believe the foreigners know better how the situation really is," says a German in Kabul.
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Popular Germany as a country of destination

 

There is also Kabul, who confront the apocalyptic mood. People like Abdul Hay Sadrey, together with a few friends the Association "Afghanistan needs you" founded. Through social networking, they try to convince to stay here to rebuild the country their peers. "The problem is that the idea has prevailed in the past years, the foreigners were responsible for solving our problems," says the education expert who works as a headhunter. Before him on the table are two smart phones and a laptop. The new generation, which grew up in the good years after 2001, was not ready to adapt to the new situation. "We can not expect salaries by $5,000. In a country like Afghanistan with a gross domestic product of $600 per person per year that's unrealistic." Sadrey even had a chance, to stay, as he took part there in 2005 in a training program in the United States. The program no longer exists since 2009 almost 28 of the 40 participants in America appeared in. "This opportunity was awarded", says Sadrey and counts more scholarships and exchange programmes which have been stopped because of the mass exodus of Afghans. This also applies to some German programs.
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Germany is also so popular as country of destination of Afghan migrants, because it has deported Afghans largely in contrast to other countries such as Sweden, Denmark and the United Kingdom. That should now change according to the will of the Federal Government. Between 50 and 100 Afghans were deported on average per month from other European countries, says Abdul Ghafoor, who heads a private outpatient clinic for refugees and deported in Kabul. He himself has lived three years in Norway before he had to leave the country. "Wasted years" he calls them. 

Nevertheless, he is an outspoken opponent of deportations. Most are traumatized upon their return. You would be looking for work in Kabul because it was too dangerous in their home provinces. But in the capital, the social network lacked to survive. "At the end of them remains only one thing: to Europe get back on the way." via Pamela Geller

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