Fleeing Taliban Ruling, Afghans are dying amid International silence

At least 80 Afghan men, women and children lost their lives last month in a shipwreck off the Italian coast as they attempted to find a new haven.

The Afghan migrants, fleeing the Taliban regime at home and feeling neglected by the world, resorted to taking on the ocean waves in search of freedom, but were met with another tragic fate.

Italy – a major NATO ally that was engaged in Afghanistan for decades – has been cracking down on humanitarian organisations that provide support to sea-bound migrants, cruelly allowing these innocent people to drown rather than providing them safe haven.

There had been serious warnings of a refugee crisis emerging from Afghanistan when the U.S. handed over the war-ravaged country to the Taliban with the Doha Agreement.

Following the treaty, the collective West, mainly European countries, abandoned the country by cutting aid for crucial humanitarian efforts and imposing sanctions on the country’s banking system.

Within months, a country with relative stability plunged into a terrible humanitarian crisis. Some have defended the country’s policy, proffering that unregulated movement across borders is illegal without proper documentation.

However, the efforts led by the US to stifle Afghanistan with harsh sanctions has left desperate Afghans with no method of obtaining visas or means of travel, leaving them with no other recourse.

After the Taliban took control of the country on August 15, 2021, they rolled back women’s rights advances and media freedom – the foremost achievements of the post-2001 reconstruction effort.

Many secondary schools for girls remained closed by the end of the year, and women were largely prohibited from working in jobs outside of teaching and health care.