Afghan refugees arrive in Uganda
KAMPALA - A flight carrying Afghan evacuees fleeing the Taliban takeover of their country touched down early yesterday in Uganda where they will be given temporary refuge, government and diplomatic officials said.
“The Government of the Republic of Uganda this morning received Fifty
One (51) evacuees from Afghanistan who arrived aboard a privately chartered flight at the Entebbe International Airport,” the Foreign ministry said in a statement yesterday.
It said it followed a request from the US government to temporarily host “at-risk” Afghan nationals and others who are in transit to the US and other destinations worldwide.
The US embassy in Kampala thanked Uganda for its “generosity and hospitality toward these communities.”
“The Government of Uganda and the Ugandan people have a long tradition of welcoming refugees and other communities in need,” the embassy posted on Twitter. Uganda hosts one of the largest refugee populations in the world - nearly 1.5 million according to the UN, mainly from neighbouring South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Most live in large refugee settlements in the sparsely populated north of the country but around 81, 000 urban refugees live in the capital Kampala.
Aid agencies have repeatedly said that the international response to support refugees in Uganda, a country of about 44 million people, has been underfunded.
Meanwhile, Rwanda will host dozens of schoolgirls being relocated from Afghanistan following the takeover of their country by Taliban militants.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh, the founder of a privately run School of Leadership,
Afghanistan (Sola), said on Tuesday that about 250 students, staff and family members were en-route to Rwanda, through Qatar, to begin a “semester abroad for our entire student body.”
Afghans have been growing desperate to leave their country, in fear of living under Taliban rule, and thousands have have been evacuated to other countries.
The Taliban, which enforced a strict version of Islamic law when they ran Afghanistan before 2001, retook full control of the country more than a week ago.