Whistleblower: As Afghanistan fell, UK abandoned supporters

In devastating evidence to a parliamentary committee, Raphael Marshall said thousands of pleas for help via email were unread between Aug 21 and Aug 25

Britain’s Foreign Office abandoned many of the nation’s allies in Afghanistan and left them to the mercy of the Taliban during the fall of Kabul, because of a dysfunctional and arbitrary evacuation effort, a whistleblower alleged Tuesday.

In devastating evidence to a parliamentary committee, Raphael Marshall said thousands of pleas for help via email were unread between Aug 21 and Aug 25. The ex -Foreign Office employee estimated that only 5 per cent of Afghan nationals under one UK programme received help. “There were usually over 5,000 unread emails in the inbox at any given moment, including many unread emails dating from early August,” he wrote to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. 

“These emails were desperate and urgent. I was struck by many titles including phrases such as please save my children.” Ex-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, moved from the Foreign Office to be Justice Secretary after his handling of the crisis, defended his actions. “Some of the criticism seems rather dislocated from facts on the ground, the operational pressures that with the takeover of the Taliban, unexpected around the world...,” he told the BBC. “I do think not enough recognition has been given to quite how difficult it was.”

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