Following the Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan, Uganda has agreed to the United States’ request to take 2,000 Afghan refugees fleeing from their home country.
The Taliban, a militant group that ran Afghanistan in the late 1990s, have again seized power two weeks before the U.S. was set to complete its troop withdrawal after a costly two-decade war. In the past week, the country has been in crisis as major cities, Kabul and others have been taken over.
The U.S. has sent requests to a few countries to host refugees fleeing from the impending war situation in Afghanistan. Uganda, amongst others has agreed to take 2,000 Afghans.
The East African nation has the largest number of refugees in any country in Africa – and the third-largest in the world, and currently hosts about 1.4 million refugees, most from South Sudan. According to the UN Refugee Agency, Uganda received 7,000 Polish refugees during World War II. At least 500 refugees arrived in Kampala on Tuesday night.
Speaking on the technicalities of this process, Esther Anyakun Davinia, Uganda’s junior minister for relief, disaster preparedness, and refugees said, “They are going to be here temporarily for three months before the U.S. government resettles them elsewhere.
