US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that 13 countries have thus far agreed to at least temporarily host at-risk Afghans evacuated from the war-torn country and a dozen more have agreed to serve as transit points for evacuees, including Americans and others.
Blinken said in a Friday statement that potential Afghan refugees not already cleared for resettlement in the United States will be housed at facilities in Albania, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Mexico, Poland, Qatar, Rwanda, Ukraine and Uganda.
Transit countries include Bahrain, Britain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Qatar, Tajikistan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan.
Blinken said: "We are encouraged by other countries that are also considering providing support. We have no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas and to fulfill our commitments to citizens of partner nations and at-risk Afghans."
UAE to temporarily shelter 5,000 Afghan refugees:
The United Arab Emirates will temporarily host 5,000 Afghan citizens evacuated from the country following the seizure of Kabul by the Taliban, the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said.
"The United Arab Emirates has agreed to host 5000 Afghan nationals evacuated from Afghanistan on their way to third countries. The UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation announced that, following a request from the United States, it would host the Afghans on a temporary basis, after which time they would travel on to other nations," the ministry said in a statement on late Friday.
The ministry added that the evacuees would arrive in the UAE on US aircraft in the upcoming days.
Europe not ready accept migrants from Afghanistan:
Haunted by a 2015 migration crisis fuelled by the Syrian war, European leaders desperately want to avoid another large-scale influx of migrants and refugees from Afghanistan. Except for those who helped Western forces in the country's two-decade war, the message to Afghans considering fleeing to Europe is: If you must leave, go to neighbouring countries, but don't come here.
"It must be our goal to keep the majority of the people in the region," Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said this week, echoing what many European leaders said.
European Union officials told a meeting of interior ministers this week that the most important lesson from 2015 was not to leave Afghans to their own devices, and that without urgent humanitarian help they will start moving, according to a confidential German diplomatic memo obtained by The Associated Press.
Austria, among the EU's migration hard-liners, suggested setting up "deportation centres" in countries neighbouring Afghanistan so that EU countries can deport Afghans who have been denied asylum even if they cannot be sent back to their homeland.
Even Germany, which since 2015 has admitted more Syrians than any other Western nation, is sending a different signal today. Several German politicians, including Armin Laschet, the centre-right Union bloc's candidate to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor, warned last week that there must be "no repeat" of the migration crisis of 2015.
French President Emmanuel Macron also stressed that, "Europe alone cannot shoulder the consequences" of the situation in Afghanistan and "must anticipate and protect ourselves against significant irregular migratory flows".
Greece, whose scenic islands facing the Turkish coast were the European point of entry for hundreds of thousands of Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and others six years ago, has made clear it doesn't want to relive that crisis.
Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi said that Greece won't accept being the "gateway for irregular flows into the EU", and that it considers Turkey to be a safe place for Afghans.
Meanwhile, Britain--which left the EU in 2020--said it would welcome 5,000 Afghan refugees this year and resettle a total of 20,000 in coming years.
(With AP inputs)
