UK to double humanitarian aid and help resettle 5,000 Afghans

BRITAIN will double its humanitarian and development aid to Afghanistan to £286 million this year, foreign secretary Dominic Raab said in a tweet.

“We call on others to follow our lead to ensure the most vulnerable Afghans receive the humanitarian assistance they need,” Raab said late last Wednesday (18).

The previous day, Britain announced plans to welcome up to 5,000 Afghans fleeing the Taliban during the first year of a new resettlement programme that will prioritise women, girls and religious and other minorities. The UK has also called on other nations to help take in Afghan refugees.

“This resettlement scheme will be kept under further review, with up to a total of 20,000 in the long term,” the Home Office said.

The scheme is modelled on that which resettled 20,000 refugees from the Syria conflict from 2014 to this year.

Home secretary Priti Patel, whose family fled to Britain from Idi Amin’s Uganda, said the Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme “will save lives”.

“Our country has a proud history of offering sanctuary to those in need. We will not abandon people who have been forced to flee their homes and are living in terror of what might come next,” she said.

The UK has faced pressure to do more to resettle Afghan interpreters who helped the military after the Taliban was ousted in late 2001. Last week’s announcement is separate from that scheme, which expects to relocate 5,000 former staff and their families by the end of this year: 2,000 have already arrived.

Raab also held discussions on the situation in Afghanistan with his counterparts in the US and India last Wednesday. He added that he was working closely with US Aid Administrator Samantha Power on the humanitarian response to the crisis.