Taliban intelligence agents raided a guesthouse in Kabul housing dozens of Afghans accepted for relocation to Germany, detaining and interrogating residents for hours, informed sources told Afghanistan International.
The raid took place on Sunday, January 18, and targeted about 80 Afghans who had been deported from Pakistan roughly two months earlier despite holding acceptance commitments from Germany, the sources said.
According to the sources, Taliban agents questioned the residents for several hours and confiscated their electronic devices, including smartphones.
After the Pakistani government deported a number of Afghan migrants covered by Germany’s relocation programme, they were accommodated at a guesthouse in central Kabul. The costs of their stay were being covered by the German government, the sources said.
The group is among dozens of Afghans who, after the fall of Kabul, had been staying at a guesthouse operated by Germany’s development agency, GIZ, in Pakistan and were awaiting transfer to Germany.
Germany’s public broadcaster, ARD, reported that Taliban security forces interrogated some of the Afghans for hours, confined them to their rooms, seized their mobile phones and filmed the interrogations. The report said they were questioned about their reasons for seeking relocation to Germany.
Sources told Afghanistan International that during the interrogations, Taliban officers asked when the Afghans had returned from Pakistan, how long they had stayed there, why they intended to go to Germany and which institution was funding their accommodation. They were also questioned about their previous employment.
The sources added that Taliban forces detained three employees of the guesthouse during the raid. One of them was released on bail on Monday.
As of late Monday night, Kabul time, none of the Afghan asylum seekers had been allowed to leave the guesthouse, the sources said.
Dozens of Afghan nationals who have been accepted for relocation to Germany remain in limbo after months of waiting in Pakistan amid the risk of arrest and deportation. Some have already been deported to Afghanistan by Pakistani police.
