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Rabat – As the international community increases efforts to help distressed and desperate Afghans fleeing their country, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has affirmed its commitment to enhancing global cooperation and solidarity by providing humanitarian assistance to support international efforts to bring peace and stability to Kabul.
While Afghan president Ashraf Ghani fled the country and announced on Facebook that the “Taliban have won,” the Taliban made a rapid advance to forcefully take control over the main Afghan cities.
The Taliban threats and actions continue to violate many human rights, in particular those of women and young girls, reporters and analysts have indicated.
Within just a few hours after the Taliban’s triumphant arrival in Kabul, images of women in public space were taken down, forcing them to remain home and shattering the rights they have gained and the dreams they have nourished in the past 20 years.
A few prominent Afghan women took to social media to express fear and frustration as they hopelessly watched their country and their entire lives fall into the hands of the Taliban again.
“I start my day looking at empty streets of Kabul, horrified for its people. History repeats itself so quickly,” Fawzia Koofi, a women’s rights activist and former Vice President of the National Assembly, wrote on Twitter.
According to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Public Health, thirteen US service members and at least 90 Afghans were killed in two bombing attacks outside Kabul’s airport on Thursday.
Even prior to the horrific bombing, the Kabul airport had long been at the center of petrifying scenes of Afghans and foreign nationals trying to flee the country. Following the bombing, US President Joe Biden paid tribute to US troops who died in the attack while attempting to complete the massive evacuation the Biden administration had ordered.
“The 13 service members that we lost were heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in service of our highest American ideals and while saving the lives of others,” Biden said in a statement on Saturday.
ISIS-Khorasan, an ISIS-affiliated group active in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India has claimed responsibility for the bomb attack.
With global and regional powers scrambling to discern, and prepare for, what is to come in Afghanistan as the Taliban tears apart the foundations of the political and civil advances Afghanistan has made in the past two decades, the UAE has said it is working closely with several governmental and non-governmental organizations to provide shelter and support for Afghan citizens.
Recent actions
Under the directives of Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, the Gulf country has opened its territory to Afghan families.
The country is also playing an active role in evacuation efforts. By August 26, the UAE had successfully evacuated more than 39,827 people using its national aircraft and airports. Of these evacuees, 8,500 are currently in the UAE for a temporary stay before heading to the US.
Foreign nationals evacuated with assistance from the UAE include citizens from France, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, United States, New Zealand, Latvia, Spain, and Mexico.
“This takes place against the backdrop of the UAE’s provision of support and facilitation of flights for a number of nations and non-governmental organisations to safely evacuate their officials and support staff, including Afghan nationals, through the UAE airports,” Emirates’s official news agency (WAM) reported last week.
To date, the UAE has been working constantly with the US to stand in solidarity with Afghans and to provide them with the necessary care and social support as many of them step into a period of limbo after the Taliban take-over.
Under the US-UAE cooperation, a transit hub and a processing centre have been established in Abu Dhabi for individuals coming from Afghanistan to undergo health and safety checks before traveling to the US or a third country.
Emirati authorities expect the operation to end by August 31, coinciding with the deadline US President Joe Biden has set for the evacuation of American troops and citizens from Afghanistan.
UAE’s humanitarian legacy
The UAE and Afghanistan have shared bilateral relations since they first established diplomatic rapport in 1973. In particular, the Gulf country UAE helped Afghanistan during its resistance against Soviet occupation in the 1980’s and played an integral role in the reconstruction of the South Asian country after the US-led removal of the Taliban regime in 2001.
As wars and extremist attacks continue to target innocent civilians in Afghanistan, the UAE has centered its humanitarian actions on improving Afghans’ living conditions.
Buttressing the country’s humanitarian legacy is its funding of a refugee camp in the Chaman region of Pakistan. With essential commodities, and a modern hospital, the camp is able to host 10.000 Afghan refugees.
In addition, the UAE has invested in the building of a number of social infrastructure in Afghanistan, including a dozens of schools in Afghanistan, six medical centres, 40 mosques, a university, and a massive residential housing project of around 4000 apartments in Kabul.
Today, as the UAE continues to pledge its commitment to the international community’s efforts to secure peace and stability in Kabuls, the country appears eager to avail both financial aid and physical shelter to hundreds of thousands of Afghans in dire need of solidarity and humanitarian assistance.
