Uganda to take 2,000 Afghan refugees
Tuesday August 17 2021
People try to get inside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 16, 2021. PHOTO | STRINGER | REUTERS
Uganda said on Tuesday it had agreed to a request from the United States to take in temporarily 2,000 refugees from Afghanistan fleeing after the Taliban takeover.
The east African nation has long experience receiving people escaping conflict and currently hosts about 1.4 million refugees, most from South Sudan.
"The request was made yesterday by the US government to HE (President Yoweri Museveni) and he has given them an OK to bring 2,000 (Afghan) refugees to Uganda," Esther Anyakun Davinia, Uganda's junior minister for relief, disaster preparedness and refugees, told Reuters.
"They are going to be here temporarily for three months before the US government resettles them elsewhere."
It was unclear when they would start arriving.
Albania and Kosovo have also accepted a US request to temporarily take in Afghan refugees.