Translated with AI
Thousands of Afghan nationals have been flown to the UK in a secret government scheme, the Financial Times (FT) has revealed after a court order banning publication of any information on the matter was lifted on July 15, TASS reports.
As it became known from documents made public only now, the personal data of about 25 thousand Afghans who closely cooperated with London before the Taliban came to power in August 2021 accidentally appeared on the Internet in February 2022. The leak occurred due to the fault of an employee of the British Ministry of Defense, who inadvertently published them. Taking into account family members, the number of people who found themselves at risk could reach about 100 thousand people, the newspaper writes.
The UK government only learned of the leak in August 2023 and launched a programme to relocate these people to the UK.
According to the Financial Times, the British government has already moved about 18,500 Afghans named in the leaked documents. That figure includes those who were already eligible for resettlement under an existing mechanism. Some 5,500 people have been resettled directly as a result of the leak, with at least 2,400 more expected in the future.
The cost of moving them has already amounted to about £400 million ($535 million), according to the BBC, and will require new spending of a similar amount. However, Sky News estimates that the total cost to taxpayers of existing aid programmes for Afghans, who can count on support from the UK for their past cooperation with London, plus the additional costs caused by the leak, will be at least £6 billion.
British Defence Secretary John Healey, speaking in the House of Commons, the lower house of parliament, offered a "sincere apology" for the "serious departmental failure".
Almost 1,000 Afghans whose names were mistakenly published have already announced their intention to sue the British government.
As The Daily Telegraph recalls, after Britain joined the US-led coalition that invaded Afghanistan in 2001, it trained, equipped and financed military units made up of Afghan volunteers. They took part in joint counter-narcotics operations, including capturing and, where necessary, killing key Taliban figures.
As The Daily Telegraph notes, the costs of urgently resettling Afghans should add to the problems of the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, who has previously tried to cut government spending to combat a multi-billion dollar budget hole. The publication concludes that in this situation, tax increases look inevitable.
