*Albania, Kosovo say ready to temporarily house Afghan refugees* ❝Albania and Kosovohave accepted…

/926161

  • UK plans #offshore_asylum_centres in other countries for Afghans

    Defence secretary says processing #hubs will be used for those Britain has ‘an obligation to’.

    Britain plans to establish offshore asylum centres for Afghan refugees in countries such as Pakistan and Turkey, as ministers admit that the UK will not be able to rescue those eligible for resettlement before troops leave Kabul.

    The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said in a newspaper article on Sunday that the UK planned to establish a series of #processing_hubs across the region outside Afghanistan, for Afghans it had “an obligation to”.

    At least 1,429 Afghans have been evacuated from Kabul since last Friday, as part of the #Arap_relocation_scheme designed to help interpreters and others who have helped the British during their 20 years in Afghanistan.

    But it is estimated that a similar number – or more – remain in the country. The emergency airlift was continuing on Sunday, with RAF flights operating despite a crush at the airport gates as desperate Afghans try to flee.

    Nato believes 20 people have died around the airport in the last week, but Britain’s armed forces minister, James Heappey, said the flow outside the airport had improved because the Taliban were “marshalling people into separate queues for the US evacuation and the UK evacuation”.

    A total of 1,721 people – Britons, Afghans and people from allied countries – had been evacuated from Kabul on eight flights in the past 24 hours, Heappey said, with the RAF receiving help from its Australian counterpart in getting people to safety.

    But British officials already acknowledge that it is virtually impossible to evacuate people coming from outside Kabul, although Afghans with a claim have told charity workers they would risk crossing the country if they knew they had a flight.

    The new proposal was born out of the emergency, Wallace said, in an article in the Mail on Sunday. “The [Arap] scheme is not time-limited. We shall stand by our obligations and are investigating now how to process people from third countries and refugee camps,” he wrote.

    However, there were signs that the asylum plan had not been very far developed on Sunday night, when Turkey said it had not been approached and would reject any approach that was made.

    The names of countries had been briefed out by UK officials as examples of where processing centres might be established.

    A scheme to establish an offshore immigration centre was included as part of the Home Office’s nationality and borders bill, published in the early summer, before the western-backed government in Afghanistan collapsed.

    It was controversial because the intention was to allow the UK to send people to a third country to allow their claims to be processed. Officials had begun talks with Denmark about creating a processing centre in Africa – but how it will link together to the emergency centres is unclear.

    Britain has also agreed to take 20,000 Afghan refugees in a separate scheme announced on Tuesday, 5,000 of which will be in the first year. Priority will be given to groups who are most at risk of human rights abuses, such as women, girls and those from religious minorities.

    Ministers are also debating how to respond to the Taliban, with the home secretary, Priti Patel, understood to be exploring with security officials whether they should be proscribed as a terrorist organisation alongside the likes of Isis.

    But the prime minister, Boris Johnson, and other government departments have been holding out the possibility of recognising the Taliban government in Kabul, arguing the regime should be judged by “actions not words”.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/22/uk-plans-offshore-asylum-centres-in-pakistan-and-turkey-for-afghans

    #réfugiés_afghans #asile #migrations #réfugiés #externalisation #UK #Angleterre #Pakistan #Turquie #procédure_d'asile #réinstallation #interprètes #interprètes_afghans #évacuation

    Comme dit l’article :

    A scheme to establish an offshore immigration centre was included as part of the Home Office’s nationality and borders bill, published in the early summer, before the western-backed government in Afghanistan collapsed.

    –-> voir ici le fil de discussion sur ce sujet (qui concerne le Royaume-Uni et le Danemark) :
    #Priti_Patel ’opens talks with Denmark to open new centre in AFRICA to process asylum seekers who want to come to UK’
    https://seenthis.net/messages/918427

    –—

    Pour rappel, les #USA ont apparemment signé un accord avec 4 pays pour un accueil temporaire (?) des réfugiés afghans, en attente d’un visa états-uniens : #Albanie, #Kosovo, #Macédoine_du_Nord et #Ouganda :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/926161

    ping @isskein @karine4 @_kg_

  • Après le #Kosovo et l’#Albanie, c’est au tour de l’#Ouganda d’avoir accepté d’accueillir temporairement (dans l’attente d’un visa de la part des #USA) des réfugiés afghans :

    Uganda will host thousands of Afghan refugees

    Uganda is set to temporarily host Afghan 2,000 refugees following their home country’s rapid takeover by the Taliban.

    Uganda’s minister for relief, disaster preparedness and refugees, Esther Anyakun, told the country’s Daily Monitor newspaper that president Yoweri Museveni had granted a request by the US to let them stay in Uganda for three months. The US will then relocate them, she said, without specifying where.

    Uganda hosts more refugees than any other country in Africa. Around 1.5 million people have found asylum there, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, most of them from neighboring South Sudan. Uganda is known for having friendly policies that give refugees plenty of rights, including education, work, and property ownership.

    Meanwhile, for many years Ugandans have worked in war zones like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. “Armed guards are Uganda’s top export,” reported Bloomberg in 2016.

    The US has reportedly been holding talks with several different countries to get them to agree to temporarily host at-risk Afghans who worked for the American government. With the Taliban back in charge, and memories of the brutality of its former regime remaining strong, many Afghans are trying to flee the country, especially those who worked with foreign powers like the US and UK.

    https://qz.com/africa/2048615/uganda-will-host-hundreds-of-afghan-refugees

    –—

    Sur l’accord Kosovo / Albanie et #Etats-Unis :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/926161

    • Afghans in Uganda

      On Aug. 17, Ugandans woke up to the news that the government had agreed to temporarily host about 2,000 Afghan refugees following a request from the U.S government.

      Until then, many Ugandans had known about the long-running conflict in faraway Afghanistan. But few could have imagined their country somehow getting involved – albeit as a refuge of humanitarian assistance in the crisis.

      Instead, when the Taliban fighters swiftly swept through the country and took over the capital, Kabul in the middle of August, thousands of Afghans immediately started scampering for their lives when President Ashraf Ghani left Afghanistan and was widely quoted saying he did so to avoid bloodshed.

      Esther Davinia Anyakun, Uganda’s state minister for relief, disaster preparedness and refugees, broke the news that America had requested Uganda to host 2,000 of the fleeing Afghans.

      She said President Yoweri Museveni had ordered her to make preparations to host 2,000 refugees from Afghanistan who would be brought in shifts of 500.

      She revealed that the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) had secured the Imperial Group of hotels in Entebbe as a transit centre for the Afghans to arrive at and be screened. She said the Afghans are expected to stay in Uganda for at least three months before being relocated to a third country.

      In the early morning of Aug.25, a chartered flight carrying 51 evacuees from Afghanistan touched down at the old airport in Entebbe. The Independent understands the flight was organised by an Afghan-American services company known as #Sayara_International.

      The International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Uganda, an American humanitarian agency that has worked in Afghanistan for 30 years and in Uganda since 1998, received the Afghan evacuees and they will be helping them with accommodation, healthcare and general welfare services during their temporary stay in Uganda.

      “The IRC is proud to be complementing the efforts of the Government of Uganda and US embassy to receive and support 51 Afghan evacuees that arrived in Uganda at 7.53am this morning,” Elijah Okeyo, the IRC Uganda Country Director said shortly after the Afghan evacuees’ arrival in Uganda.

      “The evacuees from Afghanistan will stay temporarily in Uganda whilst in transit whilst applying for asylum to countries of resettlement such as the US.”

      “Uganda has a long history and tradition of welcoming refugees from all over the world and is one of the world’s largest refugee hosting countries, with 1.5 million refugees mainly from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

      The Foreign Affairs ministry said the evacuees who included men, women and children underwent the necessary security screening as well as the mandatory COVID-19 testing and the required quarantine procedures.

      A statement from the American embassy in Kampala noted that as the largest bilateral supporter of refugees in Uganda and their Ugandan host communities, the United States appreciates the Ugandan people for their generosity and hospitality toward these communities.

      “The Government of Uganda has once again demonstrated a willingness to play its part in matters of international concern. We commend its efforts and those of the local and international organizations in Uganda who are providing humanitarian support in partnership with the Government of Uganda for these evacuees from Afghanistan.”

      “The United States appreciates the Government of Uganda’s offer to provide temporary assistance to Afghanistan evacuees and commends international organization representatives in Uganda for their partnership and for lending their expertise and support to Afghanistan evacuees,” the spokesperson of the US mission in Kampala told The Independent in an email.

      https://www.independent.co.ug/afghans-in-uganda

    • Afghan refugees might complicate Ugandan politics

      Ugandans worry the US will ignore human rights violations

      Uganda is often praised as a model of hospitability for refugees. The country is home to at least 1.5 million refugees and has a remarkable open border tradition that spans decades, despite dealing with high domestic poverty levels. But the news that Uganda might be a destination country for Afghan refugees following the US withdrawal from that country in August 2021 has raised alarms in Uganda. Some local human rights defenders are concerned that accepting Afghan refugees might excuse President Yoweri Museveni’s continued authoritarian rule.

      (...)

      https://globalvoices.org/2021/09/27/afghan-refugees-might-complicate-ugandan-politics