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Thousands of Afghans who had assisted British operations in Afghanistan were secretly resettled to the United Kingdom after a severe data leak in 2022, Defence Minister John Healey revealed in Parliament on Tuesday.
The disclosure followed when a super-injunction that had been placed by a UK court to keep the case under wraps was lifted. In a report by AFP, the leak had put thousands of lives in danger after a British official inadvertently revealed a spreadsheet of the personal information of close to 19,000 Afghan nationals who had requested to be resettled in the UK.
The leak in February 2022 came only six months after the Taliban took over Kabul, and it heightened anxious fears among those with links to Western missions. “This was a grave departmental blunder,” Healey stated. “Lives could have been lost.”
In return, the former Conservative government initiated a covert evacuation operation, known as the “Afghan Response Route,” to bring those deemed most vulnerable to Taliban retaliation to safety. The operation successfully resettled around 900 Afghan nationals, and 3,600 family members, into the UK or got them into transit. The effort is said to have cost an estimated £400 million.
These evacuees are among an estimated 36,000 Afghans who have been welcomed into the UK on different schemes since the return of the Taliban to power in August 2021.
Healey, then the Labour defence spokesman, stated that he only discovered the secret program in December 2023. The Conservative government at the time had obtained a super-injunction to maintain the operation under wraps, contending that making it public would allow the Taliban to obtain the leaked data.
“Ministers opted not to inform parliamentarians earlier that the data incident had happened, because the widespread publicity would heighten the risk of the Taliban gaining the dataset,” Healey informed Parliament.
On taking up the position of Defence Minister in the incoming Labour government, Healey instigated a review of the covert action. The conclusions showed that there was “very little intent by the Taliban to fight a campaign of retribution,” and the Afghan Response Route was closed.
Healey released an apology for the 2022 hack, saying the breach “should never have happened” and reasserted the government’s dedication to transparency and responsibility in the future.
