Uganda offers to accept refugees from Afghanistan

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File photo of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

Uganda said on Tuesday it was considering a request from the United States to take in refugees from Afghanistan, where tens of thousands of people are trying to flee after the Taliban seized power.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said President Yoweri Museveni “expressed Uganda’s readiness to provide assistance, including temporary accommodation to some of the people affected by the current crisis.”

Discussions on this matter are still ongoing.”

Media reports indicated that Uganda, which already has the largest number of refugees in Africa, agreed to host about 2,000 refugees, but this was not confirmed in the ministry’s statement.

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“Following the events of last weekend in Afghanistan, the US government has reached out to several of its international partners, including Uganda, to assist in the event of a need to temporarily host some Afghans and international citizens who may be evacuated.” The statement said.

An official with the UN refugee agency told AFP he was not involved in the talks between the United States and Uganda, but was “ready to support” any refugees arriving in the east African country.

Uganda is home to one of the world’s largest refugee concentrations – nearly 1.5 million according to the United Nations, mostly from neighboring South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Most live in large refugee settlements in sparsely populated areas in the north of the country, but about 81,000 refugees live in urban areas of the capital, Kampala.

Aid agencies have repeatedly said that the international response to support refugees in Uganda, which has a population of about 44 million, is underfunded.

French press agency

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