On Saturday, Kabul: The Taliban authorities said they’ll resume issuing passports in Kabul, giving hope to the citizens who feel threatened under the Islamists’rule.
Tens and thousands of Afghans have applied for new travel documents to escape an increasing economic and humanitarian crisis described by the United Nations Organisation as an “avalanche of hunger&rdquo.
The authorities will begin issuing the documents from Sunday at Kabul’s passport office, Alam Gul Haqqani, the top of the passport department in the inner ministry, said.
The Taliban stopped issuing passports right after their August 15 return to power, as thousands of individuals scrambled to Kabul’s only airport in a bid to catch an international flight that might evacuate them.
In October, the authorities reopened the passport office in Kabul and then suspended workdays later as a flood of applications caused the biometric equipment to break down.
“All of the technical issues have now been resolved,” Haqqani said, adding that initially, the travel documents are likely to be directed at people who had already applied before work suspended work. New applications are likely to be accepted from January 10, he added.
Many Afghans, who wanted to visit neighboring Pakistan for medical treatments, have been blocked for months in the absence of valid passports.
“My mother has some health concerns, and we needed to visit Pakistan quite a long time ago, but we’re able to not since the passport department was closed,” said an Afghan, Jamshid, adding that, “We’re happy now that people will get our passports and visit Pakistan.”
Issuing passports is also viewed as a test of the Taliban’s commitment to the international community to permit eligible people to leave amid the growing humanitarian crisis.
The Taliban are pressing donors to revive billions of dollars in aid suspended when the previous Western-backed regime imploded in the last stages of US military withdrawal.
The abrupt withholding of aid has amounted to an “unprecedented” fiscal shock for an economy already battered by drought and decades of war, in line with the United Nations Development Programme.
The crisis has forced many in the capital to offer household possessions
The crisis has forced many in the capital to market household possessions. The crisis has forced many in the capital to offer household possessions to purchase food due to their families.
The international flights, mainly to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, have slowly resumed at the Kabul airport after the facility was trashed in August, once the crowds scrambled to evacuate.
