Sep 9(ABC): Canada will accept some 1,000 Afghans who fled the Taliban takeover of their homeland and have been held for months in a makeshift refugee centre in the United Arab Emirates awaiting resettlement to the United States and elsewhere, seven sources said.
Ottawa has agreed to a US request to resettle some of the 5,000 Afghans still in Emirates Humanitarian City in Abu Dhabi, the sources said, and Canadian officials were now reviewing cases to identify those who meet Ottawa’s resettlement criteria.
It is the first known occasion of Afghans in the facility being resettled to a country with which they do not have direct ties with, such as by having worked with their government in Afghanistan.
Canada’s criteria for resettlement of those from the facility include religious minorities, single women, civil servants, social activists and journalists, the sources said.
Beyond the 1,000 people that Canada is taking at the request of the United States, Ottawa is also expected to take roughly a further 500 Afghans from the facility who do have ties to Canada, the sources said.
“It is happening,” said a US source, who asked not to be further identified, confirming the Canadian resettlement operation expected to begin this month and end in October.
Asked about the arrangement, the Canadian embassy in Abu Dhabi shared an immigration department statement saying Ottawa’s priority was to support vulnerable Afghans getting to Canada.
Emirati authorities and the US Embassy in Abu Dhabi did not respond to requests for comment.
Mohammad, who said he was a legal adviser to US government projects in Afghanistan, told Reuters from the facility that he had applied with his family for Canadian resettlement because the processing of their US Special Immigration Visa applications has taken so long.
“Because of the delays, we decided to put our names on the list,” Mohammad said in a telephone interview on the condition that his last name be withheld. Like other Afghans there, he described the conditions in the facility as similar to “jail”.
“We have no freedom. We cannot go anywhere.”
Mohammad and his family are Hazaras, an ethnic minority.
Canada’s decision to accept the Afghans brings the temporary refugee centre closer to closing, though sources said there were about another 1,000 who were not eligible to be relocated to the United States and would need resettlement elsewhere.