Afghanistan Times
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Tens of thousands of Afghans left the country last year for Europe and thousands of others are either on their way or planning for the difficult and dangerous trip. Even the cold weather cannot prevent them.
These people are from different categories of age, sex, urban, rural, poor, rich, educated and uneducated. They endure the unbearable journey to reach what they say “safe and comfortable” life and make a bright future for their children in the European countries. The journey, particularly the waterway between Turkey and Greece, even takes their lives. There are reports of the death of migrants by drowning almost every day while media is kept unaware of several other incidents.
In addition to that they have to solve their financial problems for the long trip. People sell their assets at very cheap prices to provide money to the traffickers who deceive them by a handful lies about the journey. “I promise to take you safely to Germany without suffering the hardship on the way and without giving fingerprint in the countries en route.”
Although, migration is an old tradition in Afghanistan and people used to go to Europe, the Persian Gulf’s Arabic countries and the neighboring Iran and Pakistan for different reasons mostly flee the war at home and find job opportunities.
But last year was unprecedented for Afghans to leave the country for Europe. Though it would be difficult to speak about the exact number of the last year’s migrants, but the reports count it more than 150,000 and near 200,000.
Everyone alleges the worsening security situation and losing job for migration. They have to tolerate difficulties in the host country in Europe. European governments do make efforts to keep them satisfied and the people of those countries are really nice, but welcoming hundreds of thousands of migrants is not easy. More than one million people reportedly migrated to Europe last year from different countries with Syrians at the top.
The government in Kabul urges people to stay at home and asks the host countries to send them back.
There is a question for the government, what programs do you have for the people to stay and for others to come back? The response would be surely ‘silence’. It is not possible for all the population to live in Kabul and other major cities for being relatively secure. Finding job is another ‘impossible’ thing.
Another question for the leaders of the National Unity Government is that would they call for their families to come home and share the problems that common people are facing here? Or will they themselves remain in the country if the threat comes to their doorsteps or they do not get money?
Actually, the leaders are less aware of the people’s condition and asking them not to leave the country is just to cheat the international community that everything is okay here and that they are hardworking round the clock for the welfare of public.
Now people do not know what to do? Whether to stay and listen to the statesmen’s unreal promises or to spend thousands of dollars and endanger their lives to go toward an unknown fate abroad?
