Afghanistan – Uganda will grant temporary asylum to some 2,000 Afghan refugees

Kampala, 17 August. (DPA/EP) –

Ugandan Minister for Refugees Esther Anyakon said on Tuesday that she will accept a request from the US to grant temporary asylum to some 2,000 Afghan refugees, before they are relocated.

“The United States asked the government if it could be in a position to welcome refugees and we accepted,” Anyacon told DPA. “These are exceptional commitments, as we did not have a program in place to welcome these people.”

Anyakun said she is not sure when the first Afghan nationals will arrive, but that once they arrive they will receive medical treatment to rule out coronavirus, be interviewed, and initially stay in hotels near Entebbe airport, in southern Uganda, before being transferred to refugee camps.

“They will not stay here for long. It will be like a transit center,” the minister said. 2,000 Afghans are expected to arrive in the coming days, joining the 1.5 million refugees from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo already hosted by Uganda.

In addition to Uganda, other countries such as Albania and Kosovo have already responded to a US request to temporarily accept asylum applications from thousands of people who fled Afghanistan in recent days after the Taliban came to power.