Chaos As The Taliban Closed In Diplomat's Explosive Testimony

Damning new light has been shed on the hour-by-hour decisions taken and frustrations encountered by a civil servant trying to help desperate Afghans flee the country in the days after the Taliban takeover. These are some of the key criticisms made by Raphael Marshall, a former desk officer at the Foreign Office.

- Aubrey Allegretti

Thousands of emails went unread

The government falsely claimed each request for evacuation was logged when in fact thousands of emails – including many by MPs – went unread, Marshall said.

When Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the foreign affairs committee, complained to the then-foreign secretary Dominic Raab’s private office that 10 cases he had raised in an email had not been read, a message was sent back to Tugendhat saying “we were processing them”. But Marshall said that was wrong: “In fact, none of these cases had so far been processed at all.”

Marshall estimated up to 150,000 people applied for evacuation but that fewer than 5% got any assistance. The inbox was also at one point temporarily locked, which Marshall believes was evidence the initial process was merely “a public relations purpose”

Evacuees prioritised without consistency

Even for those whose pleas for help were read, the criteria for deciding who should be eligible for evacuation was “unhelpful”, Marshall said, because it did not lay out which, if all, should be met – leaving it to individuals’ discretion.