Afghanistan: Taliban fails to serve the needy as thousands flock to passport office everyd

Nearly four days after the Taliban announced the extension of passport services to seven other provinces, thousands of desperate Afghans flocked at the Nangarhar province to get the document, reported TOLO News on Friday. According to the local media reports, the Nangarhar province has the capacity to issue nearly 200-250 passports per day. 

However, the officials said that more than 2,000 people are reaching the office. Some of them are those who are seeking medical help in other countries, said one of the officials, to TOLO News. However, due to the current situation, the officials claimed they failed to provide passports to people seeking medical help, added the official.

Afghan passports offices overflowing with applications

According to the official, the flooding of applications has caused chaos and overcrowding in the office and said that they could not entertain new applicants unless and until all the accepted applications get processed. Moreover, the officials have been requesting applicants to follow protocols due to COVID-19.

"We have collected around 2,500 to 3,500 applications, and we cannot accept new applications and documents until finishing and processing these applications," TOLO News quoted Nader Wadan, head of the Nangarhar Passport department as saying. Moreover, desperate Afghans seeking urgent passports appealed to the government to make temporary offices in order to fulfil the overwhelming demand.

"We have been coming here for several days, believe me, we are exhausted, there is a lot of problems here," TOLOnews quoted a passport applicant as saying. 

One million passports are in the process of printing

Notably, the development would come as a relief for lakhs of Afghan nationals willing to either flee the country or travel to other countries after the extremist government announced the resumption of passport services around 45 days ago. Citing Alam Gul Haqqani, the chief of Passport Directorate, the Khaama Press said that the Taliban decided to further facilitate the process for passport applicants in their hometowns in order to make the process easier and convenient.

Further, the minister said that Taliban would prioritise the passport for those who have already filled online forms for the permits.

"The passports will be issued based on the e-ID or the previous IDs that are verified officially," Haqqani was quoted by The Khaama Press.

"There are 9,00,000 passports in the directorate, 6,00,000 passports with the company responsible for their printing. One million passports are in the process of printing, and one and a half million more are going to be printed," Haqqani added. 

Lakhs of people still waiting for their turn to reach other countries

A series of incidents unfolded after the Taliban captured the national capital, Kabul, on August 15. Since the Taliban's conquest, lakhs of desperate Afghan nationals have fled the war-torn country and taken refuge in different countries. Lakhs of people are still waiting for their turn to reach other countries.

Despite facing a barrage of criticism and pressure from international communities, the terror organisation stood staunchly against the requests and warnings.

With inputs from ANI

Image: ANI