The Ministry for Foreign Affairs published the name of an Afghan security company that had hired guards at the Finnish Embassy in Kabul. In a company, revealing a name is considered a life-threatening mistake.
In Mikkeli live a happy Afghan family, even though the corona quarantine has been kept indoors for more than two weeks.
The father of the family, who worked as a bodyguard at the Finnish Embassy in Kabul, has regained his night’s sleep in the peace of the Savo city. The cheerful voice of the child is heard in the background of the call.
“It’s better here than in Afghanistan, where we were in a bad situation. We feel better, we sleep well. I would like to thank the Finnish government and the Finns who respected us and evacuated us. ”
The guard appears in the story anonymously for security reasons, as he fears for his parents left in Afghanistan.
The man who worked as a bodyguard for Finnish diplomats in Kabul is one of the lucky security guards that Finland decided to evacuate. Finland left most of his colleagues in Kabul when the United States withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban conquered the country.
Finland failed to evacuate, for example, the embassy gatekeeper, who has sold all the furniture in his home since the Taliban came to power and has already changed residence with his family three times.
He is the eldest son of a large family who was responsible for the maintenance of a family of ten with his father. The son and the father, who retired from the police, both worked as security guards at the Finnish Embassy.
Now they are unemployed and hiding. The family has exchanged their rental house for two unfurnished rental rooms. A little brother will be sent to the bazaar for shopping. The guard says the price of food is rising. Compared to a month ago, you have to pay almost twice the price for a bottle of oil.
The family of the guard, who became unemployed, has sold all the furniture in his home. A family of ten lives for rent in two unfurnished rooms.
The responsibility of the firstborn weighs. The guard has been trying to figure out how to save his family. He had already contacted the smugglers if they would take the family to neighboring countries, but the guard got to hear the situation at the borders was difficult.
The desperate wait continues. He considers Finland’s evacuation decision to be unfair.
“I can’t believe that the result of all the trust and hard work with the Finns is this: they left us alone in this difficult situation,” the man says by phone from Kabul.
Finland The Afghan embassy subcontracted 57 Afghans through a security company registered in Afghanistan, but Finland evacuated only a fraction of them: less than twenty workers and their families, a total of 83 people.
Finland left most of the security personnel in Afghanistan, where there are forty more. Finland limited its evacuation decision to the local security team, which worked in a “visible role” and moved with the “Finnish flag on the sleeve” of the embassy staff.
For example Swedish has said it has evacuated all locally hired employees of its embassy, including guards.
Internationally, Finland imported relatively few people from Afghanistan, more than four hundred. Sweden, Norway and Denmark each evacuated a thousand people, Germany several thousand.
Finland evacuated four hundred people from Afghanistan, neighboring Sweden and Norway both a thousand.
The Taliban has continued home searches in Afghanistan to find its enemies, the UN reported last week and described the situation in the country as dangerous.
The guards left by the evacuation plane have tried to protect their identities and destroyed their documents, which tell about working in Finland.
However, the name of the Afghan company that hired the security guards came to light at the end of August, when the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs published it in a press release. Since then, the name has spread to the Darin-language media, among others.
The publication of the name shocked the Finnish man involved in the company’s operations, who knows Afghanistan well. For him, it was a mistake.
He says it puts the security guards left in Kabul in immediate danger. The personal information of the company’s employees, along with photographs, can be found at the local Ministry of Interior and the tax office, which have been taken over by the Taliban.
Ministry of the Interior councilor Eero Koskenniemi justified the publication of the company’s name to HS as follows:
“The mention of the name of the company is based on the decision made by the General Assembly of the Government on 24 August 2021 on the basis of section 93 of the Aliens Act, in which the company is identified. Identification has been deemed necessary in order to obtain a residence permit under section 113 of the Aliens Act resulting from the decision. ”
According to Koskenniemi, the Interior and Foreign Affairs Administration limited the evacuation decision only to certain guards, as the threat assessment against them was estimated to be particularly high.
A Finnish man who is worried about employees does not swallow the arguments of officials.
“No section of the law justifies putting people at risk,” he says.
To Mikkeli the rescued guard experienced one of the most dangerous moments on a crowded bus as guards who made it to the evacuation list headed to Kabul Airport.
Families had to wait on the bus at a Taliban-guarded roadblock for more than two days before the Taliban finally agreed to let them through.
“Everyone was scared, especially the kids. The Taliban walked in front of the car with assault rifles in their hands. At times they fired into the air. Everyone was terrified. ”
One of the women lost consciousness and was resuscitated outdoors.
The bodyguard is grateful that his family escaped from Afghanistan.
At the airport, the Americans led them into an evacuation plane. The guard says they flew to Kuwait, where they spent a few days in a large tent camp.
They arrived in Finland at the beginning of September. At the airport, families were divided into buses and transported to different parts of Finland. The man’s family is doing well now, but he is worried about his colleagues left in Kabul. Until recently, he himself was in the same situation.
“Finland is a peaceful country. We are happy that nothing is happening here. We have everything: food, little clothes, a room. Things are getting better day by day. ”
Read more: Haavisto: Finland now has to consider how extensive its responsibilities are with regard to Afghans – There have been about 8,000 requests for help
Read more: Afghan women journalists trained colleagues with Finnish money, but the government does not put trainers on the list of evacuees – “Like looking at Anne Frank’s diary”
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source https://pledgetimes.com/afghanistan-a-bodyguard-evacuated-to-finland-regained-his-nights-sleep-in-mikkeli-a-colleague-left-in-afghanistan-sold-his-home-as-movers-and-kept-hiding-by-changing-accommodation/
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