EXCLUSIVE: Canada agrees to resettle Afghans held in UAE facility, sources say

Afghan refugees supporting Canada’s mission in Afghanistan prepare to board a bus upon arrival in Canada at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport on August 24, 2021. Photo taken on August 24, 2021. MCpl Genevieve Lapointe/Canadian Army Combat Camera/Canadian Armed Forces Photo/Handout via Reuters

DUBAI/WASHINGTON, Sept 8 (Reuters) – Canada will accept about 1,000 Afghans who have fled Taliban takeover of their homes, who have been held for months at a temporary refugee center in the United Arab Emirates, awaiting resettlement to the United States and Elsewhere, 7 sources said.

Ottawa has agreed to a U.S. request to resettle some of the 5,000 Afghans still in the Emirates Humanitarian City in Abu Dhabi, and Canadian officials are reviewing the case to identify those who meet Ottawa’s resettlement criteria, sources said.

This is the first time Afghans at the facility have been resettled to a country with which they have no direct relationship, such as in cooperation with the Afghan government.

Canada’s criteria for placing people at the facility include religious minorities, single women, civil servants, social activists and journalists, the sources said.

In addition to the 1,000 that Canada received at the request of the United States, Ottawa is expected to receive about 500 Afghans with Canadian ties from the facility, the sources said.

“It’s happening,” said a U.S. source who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirming that resettlement operations in Canada are expected to begin this month and end in October.

When asked about the arrangement, the Canadian embassy in Abu Dhabi shared a statement from the immigration department, saying Ottawa’s priority is to support vulnerable Afghans to travel to Canada.

UAE authorities and the US embassy in Abu Dhabi did not respond to requests for comment

Mohammad, who is legal counsel for the U.S. government’s program in Afghanistan, told Reuters at the facility that he had applied for Canadian resettlement with his family because their U.S. special immigrant visa applications were taking too long to process.

“Because of the delay, we decided to put our names on the list,” Mohammed said in a telephone interview, on the condition that his last name not be revealed. Like other Afghans there, he described the conditions in the facility as akin to a “prison”.

“We’re not free. We’re not going anywhere.”

Muhammad and his family are Hazaras, an ethnic minority that is overwhelmingly Shia Muslim.

Canada’s decision to accept Afghans has brought the temporary refugee centre close to closure, but sources say about 1,000 others are not eligible for resettlement to the United States and need to be resettled elsewhere.

The UAE, a close U.S. security partner, agreed last year to temporarily house thousands of Afghans evacuated from Kabul as the Taliban toppled the U.S.-backed government in the final stages of a U.S.-led withdrawal.

More than 10,000 people have since been relocated from the facility to the United States, while others have been resettled to countries with which they have ties, working with the Afghan government.

Protests have erupted at the facility from time to time, including last month, over what Afghans have complained about is a lack of communication and transparency in the resettlement process. There has been at least one attempted suicide, according to sources and Afghans at the center.

Ottawa plans to resettle at least 40,000 vulnerable Afghans to Canada by 2024, a statement from Immigration Canada said. It added that more than 17,650 people had been resettled.

Like other Gulf countries, the UAE is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and does not normally accept refugees. Foreign diplomats say some Afghans have turned down job offers in the UAE because there is no clear pathway to citizenship.

No one will be forcibly sent back to Afghanistan, U.S. officials said, and Washington is working with the UAE and other countries to find “replacement options” for Afghans who are ineligible for resettlement in the United States.

The United States has so far accepted more than 85,000 Afghans since August 2021.

Reporting by Alexander Cornwell in Dubai and Jonathan Landay in Washington Editing by Alistair Bell

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