Glyn Kirk / AFP
The Mall leading to the Buckingham Palace, in central London, January 31, 2020. (Illustration photo)
International – This flight, discovered in the summer of 2023 by the British Ministry of Defense, has only been revealed to the general public. The United Kingdom announced Tuesday, July 15, having secretly welcomed thousands of Afghans, endangered by a massive flight of their data in 2022 when some had worked for the British government before the return of the Taliban in power.
“To all that the information has been compromised, I present today sincere apologies on behalf of the British government”said Defense Minister John Healey before Parliament in Westminster. “This serious incident should never have occurred”.
He detailed the chronology of the facts which led to the implementation in April 2024 of the Secret Reception Program, called Afghan Range Route (arr), under the previous government, then conservative.
In February 2022, personal information of approximately 19,000 Afghans who asked for asylum in the United Kingdom after working for the British authorities before the Return of the Taliban in August 2021, had leaked.
Their names and coordinates had been disclosed, as well as the identity of their family members because of an error of a British official working for the Ministry of Defense.
“To date, 900 main beneficiaries (of this program, editor’s note) are in the United Kingdom or in Transit, accompanied by 3,600 family members at a cost of around 400 million pounds Sterling (460.7 million euros)”revealed the Minister of Defense John Healey.
About 600 other Afghans and their relatives should still be welcomed. In total, 6,900 people should therefore settle in the country as part of this program. Once completed, its cost should amount to around 850 million pounds (979 million euros).
Chaotic evacuations
The Ministry of Defense only learned of the flight in the summer of 2023, when personal information began to be published anonymously on a Facebook group.
In September of that year, the conservative government had asked the High Court of Justice an order preventing the dissemination of any information around this leak, in order to reduce the risk of alerting the Taliban from the existence of this data.
According to British media, this measure, which was lifted on Tuesday, is the longest order of this type and it is the first time that the government has requested such a restrictive measure against the media.
The Minister of Defense said that the thousands of Afghans hosted in the United Kingdom as part of the secret program were already counted in immigration figures.
In total, 36,000 Afghans were welcomed in the United Kingdom as part of various programs after the return of the Taliban in power. These devices are now closed.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who came to power in July 2024, promised to fight immigration both legal and underground. The Afghans appear in First Nationalities among the migrants who cross the English Channel aboard small boats.
In another case, the British Defense Ministry had been inflicted in 2023 a fine of more than 400,000 euros for having distributed data from 265 Afghan performers who worked for the British forces and fleeing the Taliban forces.
In September 2021, the ministry had indeed sent an email to 245 Afghans wanting to settle in the United Kingdom. The email addresses of all recipients were visible by the others, revealing their names and for 55 of them their photo.
Made public at the time of the facts, the case had been embarrassing for the British government, which was already accused of having poorly managed the evacuations of its nationals and its local staff while the Taliban resumed Kabul after the departure of the American troops.