Tens of thousands of Afghans still waiting to hear if they will be relocated to the UK

Tens of thousands of Afghans are still waiting to hear if they will be relocated to Britain, 17 months after the Taliban takeover. open image in gallery Former interpreters for British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office Another person who is awaiting a response to his ARAP application was told by the MoD that he would need to go to the Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to get his children’s birth certificates and his marriage certificate validated. Mark Davies, head of campaigns at the Refugee Council, said: “It is unacceptable that so many Afghans are caught in the backlog of applications to the ARAP programme, leaving them desperately unsafe in Afghanistan.” Conservative MP John Baron is calling on the government to ensure that former British Council workers and their families in Afghanistan are brought to safety in the UK. open image in gallery British armed forces helped to evacuate eligible civilians and their families from Afghanistan when the Taliban took over in August 2021 Joe Seaton, former deputy director at the British Council in Afghanistan, said that there was “no consistency and no explanation” for the teachers being rejected by the ARAP scheme. “We will continue to campaign to clear the bureaucratic blockages which are delaying the processing of the contractors’ applications and preventing them from getting to safety.” Defence minister James Heappey told parliament that, as of November 2022, there are 327 principal applicants to the ARAP scheme with confirmed eligibility for relocation to the UK who are still in Afghanistan.