Asylum Secretary wants to see "Turkey Deal" adapted to help Afghan refugees
Asylum Secretary Sammy Mahdi expects an influx of Afghan refugees as Taliban forces are gaining ground in the country, and calls for the present Turkey Deal to be altered to deal with the present situation.
A humanitarian crisis is looming in Afghanistan as fundamentalist Islamist militias of the Taliban are taking more and more territory in the country. It is expected that the number of Afghans seeking asylum elsewhere will be increasing.
Speaking about the subject, Belgium's Sammy Mehdi told the VRT that he expects an influx of refugees. Europe should be prepared for this, he says, calling for an extension of the present "Turkey Deal". This would allow a better protection of Afghan refugees. However, Mahdi added that each case will be looked at individually: it doesn't mean that an Afgan refugee will automatically be granted a protected status in Belgium.
The so-called Turkey deal was established in 2016, when the EU made a deal with Turkey to limit the number of asylum seekers coming into Europe.