Today, the Foreign Affairs Committee publishes written evidence submitted to the Committee by a whistleblower who worked on the Afghanistan Crisis Response within the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO).
The evidence will form part of the Foreign Affairs Committee’s inquiry into the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The whistleblower, Raphael Marshall, worked for the FCDO as a Desk Officer. In the middle of the evacuation effort, for one afternoon, Mr Marshall was “the only person monitoring and processing emails in the Afghan Special Cases inbox”.
The Special Cases team handled the cases of Afghans who were at risk because of their links with the UK, but who did not work directly for the UK Government. These included Afghan soldiers, politicians, journalists, civil servants, activists, aid workers, and judges, as well as guards and others who worked for the UK Government through subcontractors.
The whistleblower estimates that “between 75,000 and 150,000 people (including dependants) applied for evacuation” to the Afghan Special Cases team under the Leave Outside the Rules (LOTR) category. Mr Marshall estimates that “fewer than 5% of these people have received any assistance” and states that “it is clear that some of those left behind have since been murdered by the Taliban”.
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