US proposes resettling stranded Afghan evacuees in DR Congo
Plan would relocate 1,100 Afghans from Qatar base to conflict-affected central African nation instead of United States.
US proposes resettling stranded Afghan evacuees in DR Congo
Plan would relocate 1,100 Afghans from Qatar base to conflict-affected central African nation instead of United States.
The United States government is in talks to relocate approximately 1,100 Afghan evacuees currently housed at a former US military base in Qatar to the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to AfghanEvac, an advocacy group working on their behalf123.
The Afghans, including interpreters who worked for the US military, former Afghan commandos, and family members of US soldiers, were evacuated to the As Sayliyah camp in Qatar after US-led international forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 202113. Around 400 of those stranded are children12. The group has been awaiting US immigrant visas, which have been effectively halted since the Trump administration took office3.
Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac, said his organisation suspects Washington intends to use the Congo proposal to force the Afghans' return to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan12. The group described the plan as an attempt to "manufacture a refusal"12. "Offer these families relocation to an active war zone in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, knowing they cannot accept, Wait for the predictable no. Then use that no as the public justification for sending them back to Afghanistan," AfghanEvac said in a statement1.
The organisation added: "You do not relocate vetted wartime allies, more than 400 of them children, from American custody into a country in the middle of its own collapse"1.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has 6.9 million internally displaced people, according to UN figures, with fierce fighting between the army and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels particularly in the country's east2.
The State Department declined to confirm that Congo was being considered as a destination but said the United States was examining "voluntary resettlement" from the As Sayliyah camp in Qatar2. The Afghans have been stranded in limbo for more than four years following the US withdrawal from Kabul3.