By Verghese V Joseph –
The US administration on Tuesday said that it will facilitate the departure of Christian missionaries and aid workers from the now Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
Aswering to a query at a Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at the White House on whether there was any plan to get them to the airport and get them out, Sullivan said, “We are working with a variety of different types of groups — journalists, aid workers, NGO workers, and so forth — to help facilitate their departure from the country.”
There’s a large number of Christian missionaries and aid workers that are particularly vulnerable because they’re known to be Christians.
Afghan citizens are not legally allowed to convert to Christianity and there is little data on the number of Christians living in the country. According to the U.S. International Religious Freedom Report, published in 2009, there are between 1,000 and 8,000 Christians secretly practicing their faith in the country. There is only one officially recognized Christian church in Afghanistan, the Catholic chapel inside the Italian Embassy.
As a fallout of the Afghanistan situation, Caritas Italy has announced the suspension of charitable activities in Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban’s takeover of the country.
In a statement released on Sunday, Caritas said the “instability of the situation has led to the suspension of all activities” and has increased fears “of maintaining a presence in the future, as well as for the safety of the few Christian Afghans” in the country.
The Jesuits, who have been in Afghanistan since 2004, have also suspended their mission in the country “indefinitely.”