US Plans Monday Deportation Flight of Afghans to Pakistan
(MENAFN) The Trump administration is preparing to deport Afghan refugees to Pakistan as soon as Monday, despite fears that they could later be sent back to Afghanistan under Taliban rule, according to reports Friday.
The planned flight has not been publicly announced. Rights advocates and detainees’ families said it could take place within days, a national broadcaster reported.
The reported plans add to the uncertainty facing Afghan refugees held at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar, where Washington has repeatedly pushed back deadlines for clearing out residents.
The State Department first said everyone would be removed from the facility by March 31. That deadline was later moved to Sept. 30. In September, the administration delayed the camp’s closure by a further nine months, the report said.
Earlier this year, the administration also weighed relocating the refugees from Camp As Sayliyah to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an Ebola outbreak had been reported.
The prospect of deportation to Pakistan has alarmed rights advocates and detainees’ families, who fear for the refugees’ safety and the risk of their eventual return to Afghanistan.
AfghanEvac, an advocacy group for Afghan refugees, condemned the reported plans in a statement Friday. It accused the administration of preparing the flight while public attention was fixed on the upcoming US midterm elections, “hoping no one is watching.”
“The government won’t say where these flights land, because it knows what happens to the people on them when they do,” the outlet quoted AfghanEvac as saying.
“A government confident in what it is doing does not hide it,” the organization added.
The flight would follow months of uncertainty over the future of the Afghan refugees at the Qatar facility, as the administration continues to weigh arrangements for their removal. Neither the destination nor the timing of the proposed flight has been officially confirmed.
The planned flight has not been publicly announced. Rights advocates and detainees’ families said it could take place within days, a national broadcaster reported.
The reported plans add to the uncertainty facing Afghan refugees held at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar, where Washington has repeatedly pushed back deadlines for clearing out residents.
The State Department first said everyone would be removed from the facility by March 31. That deadline was later moved to Sept. 30. In September, the administration delayed the camp’s closure by a further nine months, the report said.
Earlier this year, the administration also weighed relocating the refugees from Camp As Sayliyah to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an Ebola outbreak had been reported.
The prospect of deportation to Pakistan has alarmed rights advocates and detainees’ families, who fear for the refugees’ safety and the risk of their eventual return to Afghanistan.
AfghanEvac, an advocacy group for Afghan refugees, condemned the reported plans in a statement Friday. It accused the administration of preparing the flight while public attention was fixed on the upcoming US midterm elections, “hoping no one is watching.”
“The government won’t say where these flights land, because it knows what happens to the people on them when they do,” the outlet quoted AfghanEvac as saying.
“A government confident in what it is doing does not hide it,” the organization added.
The flight would follow months of uncertainty over the future of the Afghan refugees at the Qatar facility, as the administration continues to weigh arrangements for their removal. Neither the destination nor the timing of the proposed flight has been officially confirmed.
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