It is with great regret that Flight from Plight is suspending its operations. Whilst we have helped some thirty vulnerable Afghans to safe refuge in the West, the global situation has radically altered since the Taliban regained power in 2021. Some of the main factors include:

 

• World attention has shifted to Ukraine and Iran.

• Pakistan and Iran are deporting hundreds of thousands of Afghans.

• Pakistan no longer recognises a UNHCR ID card as exempting Afghans from deportation.

• Pakistani Visas are near impossible to acquire legally besides a very costly black market. Roughly $1.5k each.

• Countries word wide are closing their borders. Since Trump halted immigration, besides White South Africans, there have been only three visas issued to the US.

• The UK Home Secretary claims to have opened safe legal routes to the UK. This is spurious when Afghans would need sponsors to pay for their accommodation, food etc in the UK.

• There is no UK consular presence in Afghanistan, so how Afghans in peril are expected to pay to get to Pakistan without being booted out and be processed by the UK High Commission is clearly designed to pretend there is a safe route, whilst there is not. Of course it could be done by email or phone but alas the headlines trump the details.