Mohammad Bashir reads every day that more vulnerable people have been flown from Afghanistan to Germany.

And every day the feeling of being abandoned by Germany grows in him.

"Germany has flown out 2,134 people, and I haven't even received a call," the man said on the phone on Sunday.

“Why don't you prioritize the people who are most at risk?

Why are the Bundeswehr cleaning personnel flown out before me? "

Friederike Böge

Political correspondent for China, North Korea and Mongolia.

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Bashir, whose real name is different, not only holds a high position in a German state organization.

He also appeared regularly in place of his German boss, because for security reasons he had hardly been allowed to travel to northern Afghanistan for years.

“I represented Germany in public,” says Bashir.

He made speeches on behalf of his boss, which he himself formulated.

At a televised meeting of tribal elders from districts that were already under Taliban control, Bashir spoke about women's rights and the rule of law, for example, and appealed to tribal elders to enforce both in their Taliban districts.

That these were actually not his words, but those of his boss, who could not come for security reasons, most of the listeners must have overlooked.

When German multi-million dollar projects were inaugurated in the north of the country, it was Bashir who gave interviews to the Afghan media.

He went to meetings with the provincial governors to discuss new projects.

There are countless pictures showing Bashir with high-ranking representatives of the overthrown government.

"Did they forget me?"

He applied to leave the country on August 8, but he is still there. A little over a week ago, Bashir received an assurance that he would be on a high-priority list. But nothing has happened since then. He has probing questions on his mind. “What kind of list is that? Why hasn't my time come yet? Have they forgotten me? ”On the phone you can see the tension and despair. His wife and eight-month-old son can be heard in the background. Every minute of the day, Bashir waits for either the redeeming phone call to come calling him to the airport or for the Taliban to hammer on his door. In this case, he is ready to immediately plug his cell phone with all the sensitive data into a water pipe. He has already destroyed the service laptop.

Bashir's case begs the question: what criteria will be used to decide who will be flown out first? For understandable reasons, the federal government's crisis team, which makes such decisions, does not provide any information. But even in the many organizations that send lists of names to the Foreign Office, tough decisions now have to be made about the fate of employees and project partners. “It's like a triage,” says the head of an organization. "We are like lay judges who have a responsibility for which we are not trained." This also involves "tactical considerations". Do you write all employees, including the driver and accountant, on the list? Then the chances of rescue for those who are most at risk decrease. In addition, there is competition among the organizations, says the director.Are Bundeswehr translators more at risk than employees of the Reconstruction Loan Corporation? Are private aid organizations less eligible than state aid organizations?

Around a thousand requests for help a day

According to its own information, the Berlin Airlift Afghanistan initiative currently receives around a thousand requests for help a day, mainly from human rights activists and cultural workers, but also from high-ranking representatives of the overthrown Afghan government. Twenty students pre-sort the applications on a voluntary basis. Co-initiator Tilmann Röder makes recommendations to the Federal Foreign Office as to which people should have the highest priority and who are eligible for special contingents. The legal scholar from the Free University of Berlin worked in Afghanistan for many years. Priority should be given to people “who can be assumed to be in dire mortal danger if they are found,” he says. This applies to symbolic figures of the former state such as ministers and high-ranking employees of the judiciary, security forces and the secret service,who were particularly exposed in the fight against the Taliban.

Also threatened are people who have made a particularly visible contribution to women's and human rights or who have openly criticized atrocities committed by the Taliban, says Röder. A man who was openly gay and who had expressed himself critical of Islam was also on the priority list. Judges and prosecutors are also particularly at risk because the Taliban have released thousands of prisoners from prisons who could now seek revenge, says Röder. In order to increase the chances of a rescue, he forwards some applications directly to the American State Department, where a former colleague of his works.

On Monday, Röder spread the moral and psychological burden that comes with this "triage" over several shoulders. This task is now taken over by a commission made up of three Afghanistan experts. Meanwhile, the time window is closing for those affected. If the American government does not decide on an extension, the relief flights will end in just over a week.