Afghanistan’s foreign ministry is encouraging Afghan nationals who supported American military operations and remain stranded in Qatar while hoping to reach the United States to come back to their homeland safely.
The Saturday announcement from foreign ministry spokesperson Abdul Qahar Balkhi follows news reports indicating the Trump administration is considering relocating approximately 1,100 Afghans who aided U.S. forces during the Afghanistan conflict, along with family members of American military personnel, to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A support organization known as #AfghanEvac, which advocates for Afghan resettlement initiatives, reported Wednesday that American officials had notified them of ongoing conversations between the U.S. and Congo regarding accepting the Afghan refugees who have remained in uncertain circumstances at Camp As-Sayliyah, an American military facility in Doha, throughout the past year.
The State Department confirmed it is exploring ways to “voluntarily” relocate these refugees to a third nation but declined to specify which countries are under consideration.
According to #AfghanEvac, refugees were presented with the option of returning to Afghanistan, where they worry about retaliation or execution by the Taliban, who have controlled the nation since taking control following the turbulent departure of U.S.-led military forces in 2021, due to their collaboration with American forces during the twenty-year conflict.
Afghanistan’s foreign ministry “reiterates that Afghanistan constitutes the shared homeland of all Afghans and it invites all those concerned, as well as others sharing a similar situation, (to) return to their homeland, whose doors remain open to them, to do so with full confidence & peace of mind,” Balkhi wrote in his statement.
He continued that “those intending to travel to another country may do so at an appropriate juncture through legal & dignified channels.” Afghanistan’s foreign ministry “stands ready to engage with all countries,” Balkhi stated, emphasizing that the foreign ministry “underscores to all sides that there exist no security threats in Afghanistan, & none is compelled to leave the country on account of security considerations.”
In a collective statement released by the #AfghanEvac organization representing those at Camp As-Sayliyah, the Afghans expressed they had not been informed by U.S. officials about discussions to potentially move them and learned about it through media reports. They described how their prolonged uncertain status is severely affecting their wellbeing.
“Many of us are not well. The uncertainty has been more than some of us can carry. There is deep depression,” the group stated, noting that some individuals are experiencing mental health challenges due to their circumstances.
“We will say this plainly. We do not want to go to the Democratic Republic of Congo,” the group declared, explaining that “it is a country in its own war. We have been in enough war. We cannot take our children into another one.”
The African nation has endured prolonged conflict between government troops and Rwanda-supported insurgents in its eastern territories for decades.
The Afghans at the Doha facility emphasized that returning to Afghanistan was not viable. “The Taliban will kill many of us for what we did for the United States,” the group stated. “This is not a fear. This is a fact. The United States knows this, because the United States is the reason we cannot go home.”
These relocation talks, first reported by The New York Times, emerge more than a year after President Donald Trump suspended his predecessor’s Afghan resettlement initiative as part of multiple executive actions targeting immigration.
This policy stranded thousands of refugees who escaped conflict and persecution and had completed an extensive, sometimes multi-year screening process to begin new lives in America at various locations globally, including the Qatar base.
