Refugees Six Afghan families homed in city

SIX refugee families from Afghanistan have been rehoused in Bristol, according to the city council.

Thousands of people have fled the country since it was taken over by the Taliban last month, after the UK and the US withdrew military forces from the country.

At the time Bristol City Council pledged to rehouse a total of 15 families from the country after Kabul fell to militants on August 15.

The families are being resettled under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy scheme, which offers relocation to people who worked for the British military and UK Government in Afghanistan.

The UK had been airlifting refugees to safety from Kabul airport but stopped its operation on August 28.

The Ministry of Defence said it flew more than 15,000 people out of the country, and around 8,000 of them were Afghans, according to the BBC.

And the United Nations has warned that up to half a million Afghans could flee the country by the end of the year.

In a press briefing on August 18, Marvin Rees initially pledged to house ten families, but that number has now increased.

And the mayor has called on private landlords to offer up rentals that could be used to house Afghan families and on the Government to provide more resources so that the council can resettle an even greater number of households from Afghanistan.

“We need to do more,” the mayor told journalists. “[But] we need to move at a pace that the city can cope [with].

“It’s just heartbreaking what we see happening to people and the desperation of people clinging to the bottom of an airplane.

“Our responsibility as a country, as a city, is to try and contribute to making sure that governance in that country... is as subject to the requirements to delivering protected human rights as possible, but also to support those people who want to leave the country, in particular those who have worked and fought alongside us over the last two decades.”

South Gloucestershire Council has also identified at least three homes for Afghan households and is asking private landlords to come forward with more.

We need to do more. But we need to move at a pace that the city can cope with

Marvin Rees