Hundreds of Afghans in refugee camps waiting more than a year for UK to fulfil resettlement promise

Exclusive: Concern Afghan refugees who were accepted for UK resettlement years ago will now have their transfer to Britain delayed further due to Home Office’s decision to scrap global target

The Home Office is under pressure to urgently transfer around 200 Afghan refugees whom it has accepted for resettlement before the Covid pandemic hit (AFP via Getty Images)

Hundreds of Afghans who were promised resettlement in Britain more than a year and a half ago are still in refugee camps waiting to be transferred to the UK.

The Home Office is coming under pressure to transfer around 200 Afghan refugees it accepted before March 2020, but whose cases were put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Last week, the department announced that it would introduce a new Afghan resettlement scheme that would offer sanctuary to 5,000 people from the country in the first year, and 20,000 in the “long term”.

But the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which aids global resettlement, told The Independent it was concerned that the scheme would mean a further delay for hundreds of already displaced Afghans, and hundreds more refugees from other parts of the world who had been informed they would be resettled in Britain but have been left in limbo.

Laura Padoan, spokesperson for the organisation, said there were around 200 Afghans living in refugee camps and informal settlements in countries such as Turkey, Iran and India who had been identified for resettlement to the UK, but were yet to be transferred. She said it wasn’t clear whether they would be included in the new resettlement scheme.

“A lot of Afghan refugees have been living in protracted, very difficult situations for a very long time, and that includes women at risk, children at risk, survivors of sexual violence, people with urgent medical needs. Some of these people have been told they’ve been accepted by the UK but we don’t know when they’ll be arriving,” she said.

“At the moment we don’t have any details about whether the Afghan resettlement scheme will see the UNHCR identify refugees in a traditional resettlement model way, or whether the government is proposing something different. We really hope to get clarity on that.

“But something that can be done now is to resettle the Afghans who have already been identified as being in need of resettlement and are due to come to the UK.”

Shadow immigration minister Bambos Charalambous said: “This is a desperate situation and now more than ever we need certainty and clarity from the Home Office about the resettlement scheme.”

The Independent has backed calls for ministers to be more ambitious in its plan to resettle Afghans. Our Refugees Welcome campaign is calling for the government to offer sanctuary to as many people as possible.

Last August, the UNHCR submitted a proposal to the Home Office for it to commit to resettling 5,000 vulnerable refugees who had fled from conflict-hit countries such as Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan and Eritrea.

But the Home Office has not accepted this proposal, and it scrapped the numerical target on its global refugee resettlement programme, known as the UK Resettlement Scheme (UKRS), in March, saying the numbers would instead be “kept under review”.

Ms Padoan added: “Around the world there are hundreds of thousands of refugees who need to be resettled. We don’t have a commitment from the UK, and we desperately need it to come forward and offer places to those people in need.

“It makes responding to need very difficult when there’s no commitment, because in the UK local authorities need to plan in advance to be able to receive people, and at our end we need to have the staffing capacity to be able to identify people most in need.

“It can’t all be done on an ad-hoc basis. It’s absolutely necessary for the government to work with the UNHCR, who are identifying the refugees, and also local authorities and charities offering support services in the UK.”

Louise Calvey, head of services and safeguarding at Refugee Action, said: “The announcement to welcome 5,000 Afghan refugees last week is welcome but is inadequate in terms of the numbers of people needing help. It utterly fails to address the refugees who have been waiting in limbo under the UKRS scheme, which the Home Office have been dragging their heels on for more than a year now.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Our immediate priority is to evacuate those in danger in Afghanistan in order to save lives. While the pandemic has meant that resettlement activity has been disrupted over the last year, no one should be in any doubt of our commitment to build upon our proud history of resettling refugees in need of protection.”