The funds are also intended to support former US aid workers in Afghanistan. Around 20,000 Afghans who worked in the country as interpreters for the US Army during the war are now fearful of retaliation from the insurgents and have applied for special visas for the USA.
The money could be spent both bilaterally and through contributions to international organizations, nongovernmental groups, governments or US agencies, the statement said.
Tajikistan wants to take in 100,000 refugees
Afghanistan's neighbor Tajikistan has agreed to accept tens of thousands of Afghan refugees. It is "currently possible to take in around 100,000 refugees from Afghanistan," said Emomali Ibrochimsoda of the Tajik emergency committee. The refugees are to be accommodated on military training areas.
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In the past few weeks the country had already temporarily taken in more than a thousand Afghan soldiers who fled attacks by the Taliban . Against the backdrop of the advance of the Taliban, the Tajik army held a major maneuver on Thursday. Joint military exercises with Russia are also planned in the Central Asian country at the beginning of August.
The Taliban claimed on Thursday that they now controlled 90 percent of Afghanistan's borders . The Ministry of Defense in Kabul called this a "total lie". Independent verification of the data is not possible.
Several Afghan MPs expressed concern about the state of the Afghan Air Force. They called on the US to take steps to maintain and replenish ammunition stocks before they left. The MP Hajji Adschmal Rahmani warned that a third of the 150 aircraft are currently not operational due to maintenance work.
Greens are calling for a stop to deportation to Afghanistan
In view of the situation, politicians of the Greens in the Bundestag renewed their demand for an end to the deportations to Afghanistan, which is even demanded by the Afghan government. "The federal government must finally stop deportations to Afghanistan," demanded the refugee policy spokeswoman Luise Amtsberg and foreign policy expert Omid Nouripour. The background to this is a new situation report from the Foreign Office, which, according to a report by the taz, is playing down the situation in Afghanistan.
Read more: Asked European states to suspend deportations
Regardless of the latest developments, the Federal Foreign Office's confidential paper continues to speak of safe areas for deportations. The stated "May status" could be a decisive reason for this. The current massive Taliban offensive did not begin until May, in which around 200 of the country's 388 districts have since been conquered. At the beginning of May, however, only 32 districts were still under the control of the Islamists. The taz report also expresses doubts about the foreign ministry's assertion that those seeking protection could "move to the larger cities".
In parallel with the rapid withdrawal of US and other NATO troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban had conquered large parts of the country in recent months. Observers fear that the Islamists could regain power in the Hindu Kush after the international troops have withdrawn completely. The peace negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government in Doha have been stalled for months.
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