City is ‘ready to welcome Afghans with open arms’
WE STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH THESE PEOPLE AND I AM SURE THE WIDER COMMUNITY WILL SAY THE SAME’
DERBY “stands ready to help” Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban, with a city leader saying it will welcome them ‘with open arms.’
Afghanistan has seen the Taliban take control for the first time in 20 years. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans are fleeing to escape the hardline regime, and many have assisted the UK and US military, some as translators.
A Derby City Council spokesperson confirmed the city is already housing Afghan refugees through the locally employed staff relocation scheme, and urged compassion towards those being settled.
Amo Raju, chairman of the Derby Asian Strategic Partnership, says the city has a fine history in welcoming migrants and refugees and stands to do so again.
He says those with Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds are keen to help, and that the image of a baby being passed to troops by its parents over a barbed-wire fence on the walls around Kabul airport, spurred him into action.
He is aware of a minority of residents who oppose migrants and refugees – but they are ‘a vocal few.’
Mr Raju said: “We stand in solidarity with these people and I am sure the wider community will be saying the same thing. We were as shocked as anybody else as to the speed of the changes in Afghanistan.
“We welcome people coming into the city but want to make sure we have everything in place for them, including food and clothing – when they do eventually get here.
“There’s a good chance they will arrive with nothing.
“We need to make sure the children in particular, who are frightened, are looked after. They have been uprooted and left friends and family.”
Mr Raju, who was born and raised in the city, said his family migrated to Derby in the 60s, saying: “They came under different circumstances but whichever way you arrive here, you always feel a little isolated and frightened about ‘what’s ahead of us.’
“They’ll feel like ‘we’ve fled a battle zone, we are fleeing somewhere where we could have been persecuted’ and we want to make sure they feel welcome.”
He said Derby has a “proud history” of settling migrants, including the city’s Polish residents.
“There are parts of the city where there have been noises made about certain elements of it, some unsavoury people who do not welcome change, but they are in the small minority.
“The vast majority I have spoken to, in this particular crisis with Afghanistan, they are speaking quite positively. They feel the pain.
“Particularly the fact many families were working alongside the British and US forces to ensure troops were kept safe.
“I was worried if they were going to be welcomed but I have not seen anything that alarms me, apart from some social media comments.”
He said most members of the Derby Asian Strategic Partnership have family who were raised in other countries and have “seen the difficulties” that they faced.
Mr Raju said: “Some have this view that refugees and asylum seekers are going to ‘come here and steal our jobs’ and be a burden on the system.
“But they add to the system and add a lot of vibrancy to the city’s offer. It is only going to be a good thing.”
A spokesperson for Derby City Council said: “In Derby, our hearts go out to those affected by the terrible events in Afghanistan.
“We stand ready to help, and welcome those in crisis – it is the humane and moral thing to do.”
A COURT in Vienna has convicted former Austrian vice chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache of corruption for trying to change laws to favour a private hospital in exchange for donations to his political party.
The former leader of the far-right Freedom Party received a 15-month suspended prison sentence for accepting two bribes totalling 12,000 euros (£10,277), according to Austrian public broadcaster ORF.
Fellow defendant Walter Grubmueller, the owner of a private clinic in Vienna, was given a 12-month suspended sentence for bribery.
Both Strache, who served as vice chancellor from 2017 to 2019, and Grubmueller had pleaded not guilty to the charges and can appeal the verdict.
Strache was the central figure in the fall of a previous Austrian government, a coalition of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s conservative Austrian People’s Party and the Freedom Party.
In May 2019, a video emerged showing Strache, the Freedom Party’s leader at the time, offering favours to a purported Russian investor.
The recording prompted Mr Kurz to pull the plug on the national government.
Strache, who denied any wrongdoing, was later kicked out of the Freedom Party.
Mr Kurz returned to power last year in a new coalition with the Greens.