Why Europe’s Plan to Send Afghan Refugees Back Won’t Work

As the global refugee crisis dominates the political agenda and Europe considers repatriation of refugees to supposedly conflict-free parts of Afghanistan, they would do well to consider people like the Basharpals.

The Basharpal family — father, 38, mother, 37, and their four children — originally fled Afghanistan in early 2015 and made it to Norway. Last month, they were deported back to Afghanistan. As they awaited local resettlement, a bomb went off some 100 meters from their hostel.

When I spoke to Mirwais Basharpal early in September, he and his family were once again preparing to embark on the dangerous and illegal trip to Europe.

Afghan refugees make up the second-largest group of migrants in Europe. In 2015, approximately 200,000 Afghans — less than 4 percent of the 6 million Afghan refugees worldwide — arrived in Europe.

Faced with the biggest influx of migrants since World War II, the EU has drafted a plan to deport 80,000 Afghan asylum seekers back to Afghanistan. This is a politically driven response to a humanitarian crisis: an attempt to restrain rising xenophobia and the growth of right-wing political parties across the Continent. In May, the Austrian anti-immigration Freedom Party came close to winning the presidency. In Berlin state elections this past Sunday, Alternative for Germany (AfD) — a populist party that was formed only three years ago — cleared the 5 percent threshold to enter the state assembly.

The repatriation of asylum seekers and proposed resettlement programs by European countries raise difficult moral and practical questions in the face of continued insecurity, limited economic opportunities and the inability of the Afghan government to manage such high numbers of returnees.

The global community is faced with two problems: finding a way to stem the tide of refugees and creating conditions for families like the Basharpals to return safely to their homes. In the case of Afghan refugees, the answer to both problems is the same: better security.

A survey last year by the Asia Foundation suggests that although the Afghan economy is struggling as international engagement winds down, what drives Afghans to leave their country is growing fear of conflict.

The security situation in Afghanistan remains extremely fluid. Provinces that were considered safe a few years ago are once again dangerous. The main highway heading north from Kabul, once one of the safest roads in the country, is now frequently attacked by the Taliban. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported a sharp increase in the number of civilian casualties in its annual report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict in Afghanistan. According to the U.S. State Department, “travel to all areas of Afghanistan remains unsafe.” They also warned that “extremists associated with various Taliban networks, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant–Khorasan Province (ISIL-KP), and members of other armed opposition groups are active throughout the country.”

With the latest gains by the Taliban, there is a widespread perception that security is deteriorating and militants of various groups are gaining ground. Over 30 percent of all districts in the country (116 of 384) are under serious threat, while 91 districts face a “medium threat” from insurgent groups, according to a recent Independent Directorate of Local Governance report. “Repatriation efforts are unrealistic and against the UNHCR Internal Flight or Relocation Alternative guidelines as evidenced from recent attacks in Kabul,” said Abdul Ghafoor, a prominent refugee activist in Kabul.

Unemployment stands at around 35 percent with an additional 300,000 to 400,000 young people entering the job market annually. Afghanistan’s small private sector — a mere 10 to 12 percent of the country’s official GDP — has been hit hard since 2014 with the reduction of aid and international contracts, causing thousands of Afghans to lose their jobs.

There is strong evidence that repatriating Afghan refugees does not work. Returnees do not necessarily stay in Afghanistan once deported, as the Basharpal family shows. As Mirwais Basharpal put it, “There is no security. My children spent nine months in Norway and three years in Russia. They won’t be able to adjust here. I cannot return to my district in [the eastern province of] Nangarhar because of the Islamic State presence. I feel embarrassed to tell my relatives about our deportation.”

Refugee outflows on the scale of Afghanistan or Syria are the inevitable fallout of a failed state. There is no quick fix to the refugee crisis in Afghanistan or elsewhere, and Europe’s current short-term, political, domestically inspired response to a humanitarian crisis of this magnitude is counterproductive.

The international community needs to recognize that alleviating suffering is no substitute to preventing it. Triage in Afghanistan involves maintaining sufficient military and financial support to prevent security and the economy deteriorating more rapidly, and giving families like the Basharpals confidence that they have a future in the country in which they were born.