UK To Accept 20,000 Afghan Refugees Over ‘Long Term’: Home Secretary
Mumbai: UK Home Secretary Priti Patel has said the country would accept 20,000 Afghan refugees fleeing from the country over a ‘long term’ period under the new Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme.
The scheme includes providing refuge to 5,000 stranded Afghans in the first year alone, UK home secretary Priti Patel told BBC News. The development comes days after the Taliban’s meteoric rise to power in Afghanistan.
As rebels tighten control of the state apparatus, fears of conservative retaliation have fueled a mass exodus of desperate and panicked residents who have now fled the country from Taliban rule.
According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), some 400,000 people were forced to leave their homes since the beginning of this year, joining the 2.9 million internally displaced Afghans already nationwide at the end of 2020.
“We owe a debt of gratitude to all those who have worked with us to make Afghanistan a better place over the last 20 years,” said UK prime minister Boris Johnson. “Many of them, particularly women, are now in urgent need of our help.”
The Guardian reports that women, children and religious minorities will be given priority in the Boris Johnson government’s refugee resettlement plan for stranded Afghans, adding that 20,000 people will resettle in the United Kingdom over a five-year period.
However, citing a Whitehall source, the publication noted that most of these 20,000 people are likely to flee to neighbouring countries such as Pakistan unless Britain strikes an agreement with the Taliban on resettlement works at the earliest. can do.
Notably, after the withdrawal of American troops in Afghanistan, Britain also pulled its remaining troops out of the country. Amidst the chaotic scenes in Kabul, British forces are now working for the British government to help evacuate British civilians and Afghan civilians.
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