5 ex-employees of Finnish embassy in Kabul seek protection

Five former employees of the Finnish embassy in Afghanistan, who were employed before 2016 and failed to meet the criteria to get protection in Finland, requested the Finnish authority to reconsider their situation and admit them in Finland.

The employees in an email message sent to Daily Finland pointed out various difficulties and risks of their lives and urged the government to include them in the evacuation list extending the timeframe set by the government.

The Finnish government in August decided that Finland would admit Afghans who were employed by the Embassy of Finland in Kabul between 1 January 2016 and 31 December 2020, including their families.

“We worked for the Finnish embassy in Kabul, with direct contract with the embassy for many years. Due to current problems in Afghanistan these days we live in a critical situation and we hide ourselves. Conditions are becoming more difficult for us day by day,” said the email jointly written by Najiba Siddiqe, Ghafor, Safiullah Sayeed, Sakin Shah and Bahadur, who identified themselves as former employees worked before 2016 at the embassy.

Terming the timeframe of employment tenure stipulated by the government for inclusion of the embassy employees in the evacuation list as unfortunate and illogical, the five Afghans said that the Taliban will not make a distinction between employees who worked before 2016 and after 2016.

“They (Taliban) will only focus on the fact that these employees helped the western forces and embassies,” they said in the email message.

They also said that despite repeated requests made to the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs by email, they did not get any hope other than the same reply, “according to the government decision we only assist those employees that worked with the embassy until 2016.”

“Our lives are in danger due to the Taliban demanding the follow up and punishment of the local staff of embassies and they started home inspections in Kabul and provinces to find such people. We need urgent assistance to leave Afghanistan,” said the Afghans in the email message.

They also pointed out that other countries like the USA,UK, Canada, France, Italy etc did not make a distinction between employees who started and left the job in a specific date.