Somalilandsun: Uganda is currently hosting 51 Afghans evacuated from their country following takeover by the Taliban.
The evacuees who are the first batch of the 2000 to be resettled in the East African country include men, women and children.
Their arrival follows a request from the US government to temporarily host “at-risk” Afghan nationals and others who are in transit to the United States and other destinations worldwide.
Other East African countries in a similar arrangement with Washington include Somaliland and Rwanda though the number of anticipated evacuees to these two countries is yet to be specified
News about Somaliland hosting the refugees deemed as “at-risk” for their service to the US and other international forces during the almost 2 decades war against the Taliban in Afghanistan , was confirmed in Hargeisa by the country’s ministry of foreign affairs.
Last Friday, a spokesman for Somaliland’s foreign ministry told AFP that Hargeisa had entered into discussions with US officials about temporarily hosting Afghan refugees.
“We (in) principle agree… to host Afghan refugees for the transit period,” the official said, adding that the agreement was still at a preliminary stage, with technicalities still to be worked out and no date set for their arrival.
With Somaliland yet to be formally recognized as a sovereign state internationally this approach by the Americans raises her quest a notch higher.
While discussions are being conducted between the administrations in Washington and Hargeisa, initial approach to Somaliland initiators are not state officials
According to a report by WSJ that read “From the Peacock Lounge, a conference room at the Willard InterContinental hotel in Washington, Mr. Van Meter and an ad hoc collection of war veterans, Afghan diplomats, wealthy donors, defense contractors, nonprofit workers and off-duty U.S. officials conducted a global military-style rescue operation.
Adding that Zach Van Meter, a private-equity investor from Naples, Fla., phoned the government of Somaliland last week, asking if it would host thousands of Afghan refugees.
“He just called me out of the blue,” said Bashir Goth, the Washington representative for a region of Somalia seeking independence.
Two days later, on Aug. 25, Somaliland’s acting foreign minister signed a tentative accord with charities working with Mr. Van Meter, agreeing to temporarily house as many as 10,000 Afghan evacuees in Berbera, a port on the Gulf of Aden. It was part of an on-the-fly effort that Mr. Van Meter said has helped about 5,000 Afghans escape their country in the past two weeks, in one of the most successful known private efforts to extract Afghans.
With Uganda already hosting some evacuees those set for Somaliland are highly anticipated
