>> this is al jazeera. the taliban is expected to announce a new government in afghanistan soon. it is in talks to try to reopen kabul airport as soon as possible with the help of turkey. britain says it has no plans to recognize the taliban government in afghanistan but is ready to engage directly with the group. the foreign secretary made the comments to bring talks into with the qatari government. record-breaking rain, with

flooding over a 400 kilometers stretch. reporter: president biden has sent teams from the federal emergency management agency. they were already stationed in louisiana, where ida hit initially. now teams are in place and a number of other regions in the northeastern united states. but president biden, making clear as well that these all are short-term solutions. that's what's needed is an ongoing battle against climate change. the climate change crisis is now happening. >> u.s. president joe biden says the texas law imposing any a -- a near total ban on abortion will infringe on the rights of women. the supreme court rejected an emergency appeal against the law in texas, the most restrictive

law of its kind in the country, betting the procedure six weeks interpregnancy. syria said it shut down missiles above damascus. in a statement, the military source said israel targeted points in the vicinity of the syrian capital. there are no reports of casualties, saying the only losses were material. the palestinian tester shot by is really forces has died. he was killed in eastern gaza during a protest. those are the headlines. we are back in half an hour. now, it is "inside story." ♪

nastasya: thousands of afghans have left their country, and many more are still waiting to get out. but while some nations have welcomed them, others are trying to keep them out. so, what options do afghan refugees have, and who should look after them? this is "inside story." ♪ hello there, and welcome to the program. i'm nastasya tay. now, as the taliban works to set up a government it says will be inclusive, it faces several challenges. the united nations has warned that up to half a million afghans could leave their country by the end of this year, and governments in the region are bracing for a possible refugee crisis. the european union says it will help those countries host the refugees, but some european leaders are concerned about a repeat of the 2015 syrian

refugee emergency, and now, a number of western nations have been trying to find temporary solutions in third countries until the afghans are processed and relocated. but pakistan and other bordering states have warned, they're not prepared to take in more people now. i spoke to the pakistani ambassador to the united nations about that situation on their border with afghanistan last week. this is what he told me. >> i think if there is a humanitarian crisis in afghanistan, you could see large outflows of refugees on our borders and borders of other neighbors, and we are just not in a position to take more refugees, because we have already got three million afghan refugees on our soil. so, it's a big concern for us. so we have to deal with the humanitarian situation, we have to deal with the terrorist -- the terrorism threat, and of course, we are hoping that as soon as the afghans are able to form an inclusive government, we will be able to engage with them and move forward on steps to stabilize afghanistan and

stabilize the region. nastasya: well, many of those who have flown out of afghanistan were taken to centers set up in several countries, including germany, spain, uzbekistan, and qatar, and many of those who left kabul on u.s. evacuation flights remain at the aludaid air base near the qatari capital, doha. they are waiting for their papers to be processed before going on to their next destination. well, uganda, mexico, colombia, and rwanda, as well as a number of other countries, are also temporarily hosting afghan refugees. let's take a look at some of the numbers now and where some of the evacuees are actually going. more than 123,000 people were airlifted by u.s. forces and their coalition partners after the taliban takeover. the u.s. said it flew out nearly 80,000 civilians from kabul, and of those, more than 73,500 were either afghans or other foreign nationals. the u.k., for its part, has flown out more than 15,000 people. some 8,000 of them were afghans.

well, this current crisis comes on top of the 2.2 million afghan refugees who are already in neighboring countries, and 3.5 million people who are forced to flee their homes within afghanistan's borders. ♪ now, before we introduce our panel today, let's speak to nooralhaq nasimi. he's the founder and director of the afghanistan and central asian association. that's an organization that's helping afghan refugees. he also fled afghanistan himself, back in 1999. he joins us now from london. mr. nasimi, thank you so much for your time. i know it's a very busy moment for you and your organization. i know a number of the refugees that you're currently working with are currently in quarantine, before they're properly resettled. can you give us a sense of what you're hearing from them? >> so, for the past two weeks, since kabul was captured by the taliban, we were busy with so

many -- maybe thousands of people from afghanistan living in the united kingdom, who were coming to the center to get some advice, information, and guidance to bring their families from afghanistan, because they are very emotional, they are crying, and they are very anxious about the situation, what's going on in afghanistan. but then, at the same time, we have started more than two 40-foot containers of clothes and donations to the local hotel, as well as outside london, where mainly the new people are living now. and as you mentioned, those people who just came from afghanistan, they are in quarantine, in isolation. they will be released in the next may be one week or two weeks' time. and then, the center again will become very busy because of the high demand for the services that the new people should be given, of course.

nastasya: i'm curious, you yourself fled afghanistan some decades back, and you talked about the anxiety that you're hearing from some of these families. i know this must be a very traumatic time for them. what were some of your own concerns, your priorities, when you left the country? >> the reason i left with my family and my children on the back of a lorry in a refrigerated container almost 22 years ago in 1999, again, it was to escape the war and to escape the taliban. it was impossible to live under the taliban regime, where you didn't have freedom of expression, you couldn't get outside the home, you couldn't walk on the street with your family members, including with your wife. and at the same time, prosecution, torturing, this was another big problem in afghanistan under the taliban. and then, suddenly, we have the nato intervention in 2001, where we started a new life, and then

we had so much attention from the world -- the infrastructure, the investment, the activities around the civil society, and the huge improvement in women's rights and human rights in afghanistan. that's why i was talking about the importance of the support that has been given to afghanistan, by britain, as well as other coalitions. nastasya: of course. i do want to ask you about the people that you are still in touch with in afghanistan at the moment, the ones who haven't managed to actually leave yet. what are they telling you about their plans now, especially given what you're telling me about your concerns? >> the people in afghanistan who are stuck right now, they are hoping for safe passage, as well as the humanitarian corridor to be launched and established as soon as possible.

i was hearing the news that the british government, also, they are working very hard to establish a safe passage in kabul, as well as in neighboring countries, and this is the only hope that the people of afghanistan now are looking for. nastasya: the founder and director of the afghanistan and central asian association, thanks so much for your time. we do wish you all the best with your work. >> thank you very much. thank you. nastasya: well, let's now bring in our guests. in peshawar, we have shiraz paracha. he's a political analyst covering pakistan. in paris, francois gemenne, a professor of environmental geopolitics and migration dynamics at the paris institute of political studies. and in kampala, uganda, we have marion kirabo, a human rights activist and politician. thank you all for joining us today. now, i do want to start with where we are now that all of these official airlifts have ended. there are moves that seems to get kabul airport open, with some qatari and turkish support,

and i see the taliban has promised that afghan nationals who have valid travel documents from another country, they will be allowed to leave. francois, are you confident that we can hold the taliban to their promises? will people be allowed to go? >> no, i'm not confident at all, and i'm afraid that the taliban will make sure that nobody can escape the country, and that's my biggest fear at the moment, is that there are still thousands -- tens of thousands of afghans who are desperate to flee the country, and i am very concerned that only the most privileged, only the most connected will be able to leave the country, whereas the others will remain stuck in the country. i think this is a tragedy, really, for all those who will be stuck in the country. and clearly, the evacuation process should have begun way earlier. but, you know, what we need to do is to establish safe corridors so that the people who want to escape the taliban regime can do so. nastasya: well, i want to look

at just how many more people we're potentially looking at, and how they might try to flee -- to get a better sense of what we're dealing with, let's look at a map of afghanistan. afghans who are wanting to leave the country have very limited options. the taliban apparently controls all the main land crossings. you can see them here on the map dotted around the border in orange. it also controls the airports now. the u.n. has urged afghanistan's neighbors to keep their borders open to refugees, but uzbekistan for one has closed its main crossing point, citing security. no plans at the moment to reopen it. pakistan, which has the longest border with afghanistan, has also said it won't accept refugees. now, shiraz, you're in peshawar, some 50 kilometers from the border, i believe. i see that last friday, two afghans were actually reportedly killed by pakistani security forces at the token border crossing, after trying to enter illegally. what's the situation like on the border now? >> thank you very much for having me on your show.

as you said, pakistan has the longest border, which is known as the durian line. it was drawn in the 19th century, 1893. there are numerous points, where this border can be crossed. pakistan has been fencing this border for the last several years, but there are four formal crossings. two of those are major crossings. one is where i am near, peshawar, about 50 kilometers from here, and the other in south pakistan, near the iranian border, open for trade, because afghanistan is a landlocked country, and it depends on, you know, commodities and other stuff, which is coming through karachi for the pakistani port. so the border is open for trade, but not for refugees. but until recently, even until yesterday, afghan refugees were able to cross the other main crossing, which is in chaman, and they could come.

but today, pakistan's interior minister has said that pakistan would be allowing refugees. so we have to see, because what we notice here, there can be sometimes different ministers saying different things. nastasya: indeed, and it's really a very, very fluid situation in a number of countries, trying to get as many people out as possible as quickly as possible. i see a number of countries did ask for favors from third countries to house people temporarily. i see uganda has already -- what is it, 1.5 million refugees, the largest of any country in africa. i know a lot of those are primarily from south sudan democratic republic of congo, but now they're adding afghans to that mix. how do ugandans feel about that? >> well, i would say, for starters, uganda has always been a very welcoming country, like you have said, that we are surrounded by countries that are

mostly in conflict. and we, as a nation, have a history of conflict, so we do understand what it means to be in a war and to flee from your home country. so basically, in uganda, we have a generous, i would say, foreign policy. however, there's some skepticism about why we have to, you know the conversations, why we have to welcome perhaps refugees from across another continent. there have been people who have raised concerns, and we do understand that the situation in afghanistan is quite bad, but people have raised concerns that -- why now, why would the government of uganda accept to house people who are miles and miles away in a different continent? and given the relationship, the

strained relationship that the government of uganda has had with the government of the united states of america, due to the kidnappings and the killings that took place in the 2021 election, with particularly one political party being really witch-hunted, and most of its supporters still missing up to now, and that is the national unity platform. so many have speculated that, you know, uganda is just trying to clean up its mess. because right before the announcement of the refugees coming, the head of state did go on the media to kind of castigate and criticize the security forces from immortality -- for their brutality and the torture. so there are claims, of course, speculations within the public, that he is trying -- that the ghana government did accept this gesture to mend that relationship and maybe protect themselves, to use the afghanistan refugees as a shield. nastasya: there's clearly a lot

of politics involved here. i'll come back to you in a moment about that, marion, because i do want to bring in francois. i want to also bring up that map again, because there is this very, very long border with iran that afghanistan shares. it's regarded as fairly porous. many refugees i know are hoping to use it to cross and then travel on to turkey and then on to europe. greece has already fortified its very big wall, in anticipation of those movements, and france -- given how politically charged all of this is, how is all that going to go over, especially after what happened in 2015? >> i'm afraid this is going very very badly. and indeed, as you just recalled, everyone in europe is very much concerned and very much afraid. that the asylum crisis of 2014-2016 will repeat again, and therefore, most european leaders today view afghan refugees as a potential threat for europe, which is like the ultimate paradox. we see people who are themselves

in danger as a potential threat and danger for europe, and therefore, we're in a situation, really, where no country is really willing to accept afghan refugees. european countries are convinced that they are taking the brunt of the burden. whereas, if you look at the numbers worldwide, there are roughly 2.6 million afghan refugees worldwide. that's roughly 11% of the total number of refugees, and only 13% of these refugees are being welcomed -- are being hosted in europe as we speak right now. but we need to keep in mind that afghan refugees are also the largest group of asylum seekers in some european countries, like france and belgium, and that trend has increased over the past few years and obviously will continue to increase in the coming weeks and in the coming months. but really, the terrible situation right now is that most afghans are likely to remain stuck in the country, because they have nowhere nowhere else

-- because they have nowhere else to go, and no other country is really willing to accept them, which means that the flows of refugees will be decided and arranged by smugglers, unless europe or other countries, possibly qatar, could come up with a solution and a resettlement scheme with secure corridors. then the smugglers will arrange these corridors, and that means that government will have absolutely no control over that. nastasya: francois, you mentioned some security concerns there. i know that's being also cited by the pakistani government, as a reason to not take afghan refugees at the moment. and there were a number of releases by the taliban of pakistani militants, as they advanced across the country. how real are those security threats at the moment, and is that actually jeopardizing the humanitarian situation on the border? are refugees paying for really some political dynamics and other concerns?

>> yes, the pakistani government is quite concerned about it, and as you mentioned, thousands of militants were released under an agreement, and those militants were fighting the state of pakistan in the past. and the government thinks that they could, you know, use afghanistan as a staging post, even though the taliban have assured pakistan several times, more than once, that they will not allow anyone, the afghan, you know, territory, to be used against pakistan or against any other country. but here i would like to bring to light in the discussion -- i would like to bring bring up a point, i think it's too early to say that hundreds and thousands of refugees will come from afghanistan. it all depends on the behavior, on the conduct, the attitude of the taliban.

so far, they have been behaving differently, like better than when they were in the 1990s. so we have yet to be to see if thousands of people wouldn't leave, people who were -- who wanted to leave afghanistan on the 15th of august were mostly urban populations in kabul city, people who were working for the western governments at nato, and they feared that the taliban may prosecute them. but we don't know if people from rural afghanistan will leave. it all depends on the, as i said, on the conduct of the taliban. secondly, refugees, people who are likely to be refugees, will be ethnic minorities such as shia, hazaras, or uzbeks, or tajiks. i don't think many persons will come -- will leave, especially from the rural areas.

yes, people might leave afghanistan and try to come to pakistan, because pakistan is an english speaking country, their official language is english, and in the past 20 years, young people who were trained in urban cities of afghanistan, they got skills, english language skills, i.t. skills, and if there are not many economic opportunities, if the taliban cannot solve the challenges which they face now, economic challenges, then those skilled workers, economic migrants might come to pakistan, because they can't go to central asian countries. nastasya: i want to bring in marion, sorry, i don't want to run out of time, and i do want to ask about the economics behind the resettlement, as well of these refugees. -- the resettlement, as well, of these refugees. marion, i know obviously uganda's struggled with tourism under the pandemic that we've been living through, and there

has been some speculation that obviously the u.s. is footing the bill for the refugees who are coming to uganda. is that, do you think, a big consideration for the government, in choosing to do this? >> it could be, because, right now, i'd say that the economy is doing quite badly. i recently -- kampala town locked up shop because of the high taxes, and their argument was that we have been through a lockdown. we do not have money, and yet you are imposing higher taxes on us. how are we supposed to make business? the economy is really struggling, i must say. and so, the first question ugandans had about this deal was, who's going to fit the bill? -- foot the bill? and the u.s. and the ugandan government quickly came in to say that the u.s. is footing the bill. so, yes, it was a big consideration, because i don't think the government right now has the capacity to take in extra refugees, especially with

the concern of people from afghanistan, the security risk that it comes with. nastasya: we've talked a little bit about that, of course. francois, i don't want to let you go without asking you about some of the other concerns here that afghan refugees are facing. it's not just conflict and the taliban, there is also a severe drought going on, massive concerns about food and security, and i also know that you work on climate issues. do you think, potentially, that political refugees are given more primacy in these dialogues that we're having about asylum seekers, rather than other issues that might be related to to the economics, and security and instability around climate issues -- is that being given enough thought here? >> clearly, not enough, and really, i don't want to make a hierarchy, stating that some would be more deserving of protection than others, and obviously, political refugees are completely deserving of protection, but the reality is

that worldwide, there are roughly three times more people displaced by disasters, such as drought, or floods, or hurricanes, than people displaced by war and violence, which means that when we look at the instruments of protection that we have at hand, clearly, many of them are updated. -- many of them are outdated. if we look at the contemporary realities of forced migration, the situation is that asylum is being restricted every day as we speak, whereas it should be enlarged to other categories. and i think that most countries right now are convinced that they can isolate themselves by building walls and fences. and yet, the reality is that more and more people will be migrating in the years to come, and that we can only tackle this issue through international cooperation, rather than through building walls and fences, which will not deter people from migrating these walls and

fences, it will only reassure the people who are already within these walls, but it will only make migration more costly and more dangerous. nastasya: indeed. and we're having these conversations now about temporary refugees, potentially, but it also remains to be seen just how temporary that is. i see all of you nodding there in agreement about how we need to expand these definitions and expand the help that we are giving to various different asylum seekers, not only from afghanistan, but elsewhere. and i do really want to thank you for all the time that you've given us today and all the work that you are doing. so let's say thank you, then, to all of our guests, that's nooralhaq nasimi, shiraz paracha, francois gemenne, and marion kirabo. and we do really wish you all the best with the work that you are doing. thank you, too, for watching. you can see the program again anytime by visiting our website, aljazeera.com. and for further discussion, go to our facebook page. that's facebook.com/ajinsidestory.

you can also join the conversation on twitter. our handle is @ajinsidestory. from me, nastasya tay, and the whole team here, bye for now. ♪

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