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The Liberal Democrats have claimed people trying to flee the Taliban and come to the UK have been ignored as their calls and emails have been ignored by the Government.
Sarah Olney, Lib Dem MP for Richmond Park, said she had been approached by constituents who have family and loved ones stuck in Afghanistan.
“If we cannot get them out, they risk being hunted down and killed by the Taliban,” she said, adding: “the Government’s failure to set up a workable, transparent system for raising urgent cases is not just staggering – it is morally negligent.
“My team and I are working incredibly hard to try and get these people help, yet the Government’s inboxes are nothing but black holes, and there are numerous reports of desperate calls going straight to voicemail.”
MPs have also said emails are not being picked up which has resulted in party stuff having to spend hours on hold to pass on crucial information over the phone.
Ms Olney said: “Without swift and co-ordinated action being taken by Government, we risk condemning thousands of vulnerable people – including many who helped our service personnel – to potential death at the hands of the Taliban.
“Amongst those I’m trying to help is a family who are currently in hiding because the father worked for the Afghan military and supported us as a Nato interpreter.
“His whole family, and now his wife’s family, are being hunted by the Taliban in order to find him. Unless they get urgent help soon, I fear the worst will happen.
“The Government should set up temporary call centres to field additional calls, expand the pool of Whitehall staff working on getting people out, and ensure that no-one who worked alongside and supported our brave armed forces personnel is left behind.”
BBC Radio 4’s Today programme played a clip to the Foreign Secretary on Wednesday in which a former interpreter for British armed forces said he was scared for his life and trying to leave the country with his family, but had not received responses to emails sent to the UK’s team handling the processing of evacuation requests.
The interpreter said he had papers from the British armed forces but did not have a visa, and that he had sent 105 emails to the UK’s staff handling applications but received no reply.
Dominic Raab said he did not know the specifics of that case, but added: “Clearly the situation on the ground is challenging. The team in Kabul and at the emergency response centre in the (Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office in the UK) is processing them as fast as we physically can.”
He said: “There is still a chance – and again I don’t know the details of his case – but there is still a chance he might be and his family called forward.
“The reassurance I can provide you is that in the last 24 hours 2,000 were called forward and returned home, so what we have got to do with the window that we have got available, given the end of August deadline, keep getting as many of those people, such as we can given the conditions on the ground and given the position at roadblocks and outside the airport, get them through into the airport and out. We are doing it as fast as we can.”
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “As we have consistently said, the Foreign Secretary has been overseeing the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s response to the situation in Afghanistan throughout, including engaging with international partners and directing the FCDO’s emergency response centre.”
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