‘We Have Relocated More Than 97,000 Afghans to US’ : Blinken
In the meantime, a number of Afghan refugees in the Abu Dhabi camp said that their fundamental desire is to be transferred to the US.
Washinton DC : US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that overall more than 97,000 Afghans have been relocated to the United States.
Speaking at a signing ceremony to renew the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the US Department of State and the #AfghanEvac Coalition on Monday, June 12, Blinken said that US is working with AfghanEvac to relocate more Afghans faster.
“So thanks to the leadership that we’ve seen, thanks to our state and local partners, thanks to the generosity of our fellow citizens, we’ve relocated more than 24,000 Afghans to the United States and third countries since September 2021. Overall – (applause) – overall, we have relocated more than 97,000 Afghans to the United States – Afghans who are going to school, who are starting new jobs, who are settling into their communities,” he said.
US Secretary of State further stated: “This job is not yet done. The Memorandum of Understanding that we will shortly sign will allow us to keep sharing information with one another, to coordinate our outreach to additional civil society partners, to guide our ongoing efforts to find more, and better, ways to serve our Afghan partners – both those already here, and those yet to come – and keep pace with their evolving needs.”
“There is still so much more to be done, and I am grateful to be here today to reaffirm that we will continue to do this vital work together,” said Shawn VanDiver, head of AfghanEvac.
In the meantime, a number of Afghan refugees in the Abu Dhabi camp said that their fundamental desire is to be transferred to the US.
“Sadly, even though the US government has announced that it will speed up the process of reviewing the immigration cases of Afghans in the Abu Dhabi camp, we did not see this speed up,” said Feraidon Azhand, an Afghan journalist and refugee in Abu Dhabi.
AfghanEvac is a coalition of more than 200 organizations working alongside the US government to support Afghan relocation efforts.
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