Some representatives of the opposition also called for more help for the Czech Army’s collaborators. According to the Minister of Defense Lubomír Metnar (for YES), the assistance concerns interpreters with a valid contract who have passed a security check. Collaborators from the previous period will not be able to help.
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Representatives of the association said on Sunday afternoon on Facebook that they are still in contact with 12 interpreters. Some of them were called to Kabul airport, they did not receive another offer of help.
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“One interpreter cannot get to the airport. The mobile network is crashing, so many panic that they will not be called from the embassy. Others are afraid that they are not on the list (they have not received a call), and even consider suicide as an escape from torture by the Taliban, which is already in the city, “the association said.
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He called on the Ministry of Defense to call everyone and notify them of the refusal. “So that they would not wait at home or in front of the airport, but could look for shelter,” the association’s representatives wrote. They called on Babiš to send as many planes as possible to Afghanistan, and all those who worked for the Czech Republic were allowed on board.
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Former member of the Military Police (SOG) special unit Lumír Němec, who worked in Afghanistan, confirmed to ČTK on Sunday that some of the interpreters with whom he or the Save the Interpreters initiative is in contact did not receive an offer of assistance.
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He himself is in contact with two former army collaborators who were included in the resettlement program, which was canceled about four years ago. The German had previously said that at that time they had passed a security check. “Those people are in Kabul in front of the airport now and they absolutely don’t know what will happen to them,” he said.
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Metnar said on Twitter on Sunday that the Czechia was in contact with all Afghan interpreters affected by the rescue program. If one of the Afghan collaborators of the Czech army was not contacted, his contract with the army probably ended a long time ago and the program does not apply to him, or he did not pass the security check.
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“I urge the government to start behaving humanely, responsibly, in the tradition of foreign policy that Václav Havel tried to establish here. Let’s help the Afghan allies! “Wrote the chairman of STAN Vít Rakušan on Twitter.
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In response to criticism, Prime Minister Babiš said on Sunday on Facebook that “we are doing our best” and accused the opposition of “traditionally interpreting nonsense and rather endangering the situation of these people”.
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Because of the advancing Taliban, people who have worked with coalition forces in recent years are trying to get out of Afghanistan. They are worried about their lives and that of their families. Kabul was still ruled by the Afghan government in the morning, but during the day, Taliban fighters of the Islamist movement arrived in its suburbs and later advanced into the city without resistance. President Ashraf Ghani apparently flew to Tajikistan.
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