Canada To Resettle 1,000 Afghan Refugees Waiting in Abu Dhabi

Canada will accept 1,000 Afghan refugees of the 5,000 who have spent the last year in a facility in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates while waiting for resettlement in a third county. Canada agreed to a US request to resettle the Afghans who fled their birth country when the Taliban took over after the US pulled its troops from the country, Reuters first reported over the weekend, quoting seven unnamed sources. It is the first time that Afghans in the UAE facility will be resettled in a country to which they do not have direct ties. Ottawa also will take 500 Afghan refugees with ties to Canada. The UAE agreed to a US request to temporarily house several thousand Afghans evacuated last year at the end of the US withdrawal. More than 10,000 have been relocated to the United States and to other countries to which they had ties in the last year. Those ties include working with their governments in Afghanistan, requiring them to leave out of fear for their lives due to threats of retribution by the Taliban. There are about 1,000 refugees in the UAE center who are not eligible to be resettled in the United States. At least 40,000 Afghan refugees will be resettled in Canada by 2024, with over 17,650 resettled so far. The US has resettled some 85,000 Afghans in the last year.