Afghanistan calls on Afghans who helped US in war and are now stuck in Qatar to return home

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s foreign ministry says Afghans who aided America’s war effort Those stranded in Qatar with hopes of reaching the United States can safely return to Afghanistan.

Statement by foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi on Saturday. Reports emerged that the Trump administration was in talks It would potentially send 1,100 Afghans and relatives of US soldiers who helped the US during the war in Afghanistan to Congo.

#AfghanEvac, an organization that supports Afghan resettlement efforts, said in a statement on Wednesday that U.S. officials had briefed the group on talks between the United States and the United States. Congo It concerns the reception of Afghan refugees who were left in limbo at the US base Camp As-Sayliyah in Doha last year.

The State Department said it was working to identify options for “voluntary” resettlement of refugees in a third country but did not confirm which countries were being discussed.

#AfghanEvac said one alternative offered to refugees was to return to Afghanistan, where they fear reprisals or even death from the Taliban, who rule the country. since they took power It follows the chaotic withdrawal of US-led forces in 2021 to work alongside the US during the two-decade war.

In his statement, Balkhi wrote that the Afghan foreign ministry “reiterates that Afghanistan is the common homeland of all Afghans and invites all concerned and others who share a similar situation to return to their homeland, whose doors are open to them, and to do so with full confidence and peace of mind.”

He added that “those who wish to travel to another country can do so at an appropriate time through legal and honorable channels.” Stating that the Afghan foreign ministry is “ready to contact all countries”, Balkhi stated that the foreign ministry “underlined to all parties that there is no security threat in Afghanistan and that no one is obliged to leave the country for security reasons”.

In a joint statement issued by the #AfghanEvac group on behalf of residents of As-Sayliyah Camp, Afghans said they had received no information from US officials about talks to potentially resettle them and that they had learned this from the press. They said that the uncertainty they lived in seriously harmed them.

“Many of us are not well. The uncertainty is too much for some of us to bear. There is a deep depression,” the group said, adding that some are struggling with their mental health due to this situation.

“We will say this clearly. We do not want to go to the Democratic Republic of Congo,” the group said, adding, “It is a country in its own war. We have been in enough wars. We cannot take our children to another war.”

African country has been battered for decades fight Between government forces and Rwanda-backed rebels in the eastern region.

Afghans in the camp in Doha also said returning to Afghanistan was not an option. “The Taliban will kill many of us for what we have done for the United States,” the group said in its statement. “This is not a fear. This is a fact. The United States knows this because the United States is the reason we cannot return home.”

The relocation discussions, first reported by The New York Times, come more than a year after President Donald Trump. paused his predecessor’s Afghan resettlement program as part of a series of executive orders pressures against immigration.

The policy has stranded thousands of refugees in locations around the world, including a base in Qatar, as they flee war and persecution and go through a sometimes years-long vetting process to start new lives in America.

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Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece.