Shawn VanDiver, head of the organization AfghanEvac, said the US government plans to transfer stranded Afghan refugees in Qatar to the African country of Congo.
The group, numbering about 1,100 people, are asylum seekers to the United States but have been living in limbo in Qatar for nearly a year.
They include former interpreters for US military forces, former Afghan special forces members, and family members of US service personnel. More than 400 children are also among them.
VanDiver said US State Department officials had informed him of the plan to relocate these refugees to Congo.
He added that they are being told to choose between returning to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan or being transferred to Congo, a country facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
According to the United Nations, more than 600,000 refugees are currently in Congo. Human rights activists say the country, amid ongoing conflict with Rwanda, lacks the capacity to take in more people.
VanDiver told The New York Times: “We think this is just them wanting to send these people back to Afghanistan, where they know they will face certain death. They know that Afghans are not going to accept the D.R.C.”
