James Landale Diplomatic Correspondent

A whistleblower stated that the way the British Foreign Office handled the Afghan evacuation after the Taliban occupied Kabul was "dysfunctional" and "chaotic."

Rafael Marshall said that the process of choosing who can leave the flight was "arbitrary," and thousands of e-mails asking for help were not read.

He added that Dominic Raab, the then Foreign Secretary, was slow to make decisions.

A government spokesperson said that staff "work tirelessly" are "the greatest mission in generations."

A source close to Mr. Raab said that verifying identity and ensuring safe passage are the main practical challenges—not the speed of decision-making.

After the Taliban took control of the capital, Kabul, the British airlifted 15,000 people from Afghanistan. These include 5,000 British nationals, 8,000 Afghans and 2,000 children.

In the written evidence submitted to the Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Marshall stated that as many as 150,000 Afghans who were in danger because of their links to the United Kingdom had applied for evacuation-but less than 5% had received any assistance.

"It is clear that some of the people who stayed were later murdered by the Taliban," he added.

Before resigning in September, Mr. Marshall served as the senior director of the Office of Foreign Affairs, Federal and Development (FCDO), and he stated that the department’s crisis center was “understaffed”.

He added that there is also a "lack of expertise" and "lack of coordination" between the department and the Ministry of Defense.

Mr. Marshall also stated that Mr. Raab spent several hours responding to e-mails and “did not fully understand the situation”.

The key issues pointed out by the whistleblower Rafael Marshall, a diplomat, included:

When the Taliban approached Kabul in August, the government had one plan to evacuate those Afghans who worked directly for the British government, and another plan to identify and help those who were at risk because of their broader links with the UK.

Mr. Marshall worked for officials dealing with a team called the "Afghan Special Case".

These include Afghan soldiers, politicians, journalists, civil servants, activists, aid workers, judges, and guards who indirectly work for the British government through subcontractors.

In the desperate days of the Taliban's advance to Kabul at the end of August, many of them sent FCDO permission to fly out of the country via email.

Mr. Marshall stated that “at any given moment, there are usually 5,000 unread emails in the inbox” and “there are thousands of emails that no one even reads”, including cases from members of Congress.

He said the process of prioritizing applicants was "arbitrary and dysfunctional." The standards used by the government are "useless" and "ambiguity", leading to confusion.

The staff of the Crisis Center who previously worked in the Ministry of International Development could not access the FCDO computer because "DFID and FCO IT systems are not yet integrated. They are obviously shocked by our chaotic system."

Mr. Marshall described how soldiers were brought in to help, but many people had never used a computer system before and made mistakes.

These computers must be shared because FCDO IT did not issue a password to unlock them. Once, eight soldiers shared a computer.

Mr. Marshall said that only English can be used to call Afghans. No one speaks Dari or Pashto.

Mr. Marshall said: "I believe that no member of the Afghanistan Special Cases Group has studied Afghanistan, worked in Afghanistan before, or has detailed knowledge of Afghanistan.

He added: “People are obviously afraid of being asked to make hundreds of life and death decisions that they know nothing about.”

He said: "Most people in the FCDO crisis center have little knowledge of the actual situation at Kabul Airport and the urgency of calling people together as quickly as possible."

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Mr. Marshall’s report stated that the FCDO Crisis Center sent notes to Mr. Raab’s office to make decisions on difficult cases.

But "the Minister of Foreign Affairs spent several hours processing any of these notes." When he did so, "he couldn't make individual cases without seeing all the cases "in a well-arranged form." Make a decision.

Mr. Marshall concluded: “This request by the Foreign Secretary shows that he does not fully understand the situation.”

He said on another occasion, “The Minister of Foreign Affairs refused to make a decision on whether to admit these people, and did not submit materials in the correct format, accompanied by a form listing multiple cases.”

A source close to Mr. Raab said: “We evacuated more than 500 special circumstances, including journalists, women’s rights activists and extremely vulnerable people.

"The main practical challenge of evacuation is to verify identity and ensure safe arrival at the airport, not to speed decision-making. At all times, the team's focus is on saving lives."

Congressman Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, stated that the evidence showed a "lack of interest and bureaucracy" and "severely questioned the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs."

A spokesman for the British government said that more than 1,000 FCDO staff worked tirelessly and more than 15,000 were evacuated from Afghanistan in two weeks.

"The scale of the evacuation and the challenging situation means that prioritization decisions must be made quickly to ensure that we can help as many people as possible," it said.

It said the government is still working hard to help others leave, and since the end of the operation, it has helped more than 3,000 people leave Afghanistan.

They added: "Unfortunately, we cannot evacuate all the people we want to evacuate, but our commitment to them is lasting."

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