Uganda to take 2,000 Afghan refugees at U.S. request

[August 17, 2021]    KAMPALA (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.

People try to get inside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan August 16, 2021. REUTERS/Stringer

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 U.S. government to H.E. (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 U.S. government resettles them elsewhere."

It was unclear when they would start arriving.

Albania and Kosovo have also accepted a U.S. request to temporarily take in Afghan refugees.

(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.