Canadian refugees say Afghans in UAE facilities ‘suffering psychologically’

TORONTO, Oct 13 (Reuters) – Afghans living in temporary refugee camps in the United Arab Emirates demonstrated this week against uncertainty about their identities, participants told Reuters, with a refugee now in Canada saying, They “suffer psychologically”.

Residents of the camp, known as Emirati Humanitarian City, have been housed there pending transfer to another country since fleeing Afghanistan after the Taliban took over last year.

Two Afghans in the camp told Reuters on Tuesday that some of the 2,000 to 3,000 Afghan refugees at the facility staged demonstrations this week demanding clarification on their futures. The protests were called off after the authorities made an update on the resettlement process. Reuters could not confirm what assurances, if any, were given.

Ahmad Sadam Siam Panah left the UAE facility in late September for Canada, one of about 1,500 Afghans in Canada agree to resettlement Leave the camp at the request of the United States.

Pana, 24, said he was grateful for what the UAE had done for Afghan refugees, but was concerned about those who remained in the facility.

“They are mentally damaged. Psychologically suffering … most of them had a dream of working in Afghanistan … but now the dream is to leave the refugee camp.”

The UAE said it provided housing, medical care, food, education and counselling, and told Reuters that 85 percent of the roughly 17,000 Afghans in the camps had been resettled.

“The UAE continues to work with the U.S. embassy to process travelers and liaise with their U.S. counterparts in an effort to accommodate the remaining evacuees in a timely manner in accordance with the original agreement,” an Emirati official said.

“We knew there was frustration and it took longer than expected to complete.”

The U.S. embassy in the United Arab Emirates did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Pictures and videos shared with Reuters inside the camp on Monday and Tuesday included those of children and women marching and chanting “We want freedom”. One banner read: “Women suffer spiritually.”

Camp residents joked that they had forgotten how to share the street with cars because they had not been allowed out for so long, Panah said.

“A prisoner knows when he will be released, but we don’t know when we will be transferred to our final destination,” he said.

Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny Additional reporting by Ghaida Ghantous and Alexander Cornwell in Dubai Editing by Rosalba O’Brien

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