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A commercial airplane is seen at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 31, 2021, a day after U.S. troops withdrew from the country.
STRINGER/Reuters
Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau says about 1,250 Canadian nationals, permanent residents and family members are stranded in Afghanistan as Canada and its allies continue to put pressure on the Taliban to allow them safe passage out of the country.
Mr. Garneau and Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino held a news conference in Ottawa Tuesday to announce that Canada was accepting 5,000 Afghan refugees that are now in overcrowded U.S. bases in the Middle East and Europe.
Until now, Canada wasn’t certain how many Canadians have been left behind in Afghanistan because many boarded evacuation flights from other countries.
Since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on Aug. 15, there was a panicked rush of Canadian expats and Afghans, who worked for Canada’s military and diplomats, fleeing Afghanistan on rescue flights. Canada completed its last evacuation flight last Thursday and the U.S. pulled its forces out of Kabul airport on Monday.
“Now that we have had a chance to look at the manifests from those other countries, we estimate at the moment there are roughly 1,250 either Canadian citizens, permanent residents or family members that are in Afghanistan,” Mr. Garneau said.
The Foreign Affairs Minister said he is advising Canadians to stay in a safe location as negotiations continue with the Taliban to guaranteed that they are able to leave on civilian aircraft once Kabul airport is reopened.
“The situation is uncertain and we are trying very hard to get the Taliban to allow people to leave safely and we are also trying to get the airport reopened again,” he said.
Mr. Garneau said if Canadians wish to try to get out of the country through bordering nations, he said Ottawa has alerted its embassies and consulates to help process them so they can come to Canada.
Canada to resettle 5,000 Afghan refugees housed at U.S. bases
It is over: Afghan mission ends as U.S. sends last flight out of Kabul
Explainer: Afghanistan is under Taliban control. U.S. troops have left Kabul. The rescue airlifts are over. How did we get here?
Mr. Mendicino said Canada evacuated about 3,700 people since Aug. 4, of which about 2,000 are former Afghans who helped the Canadian military and diplomats, including translators, fixers and support staff and their families.
Mr. Mendicino was put on the spot over confusing messages sent by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to Afghan refugees, who had facilitation letters from Global Affairs to board rescue flights but never managed to get out of Afghanistan before Kabul airport was shutdown.
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On Tuesday, many of these people were told by e-mail and text messages: “As the Canadian evacuation flights have ended and no future flights are planned at this time, the facilitation letter no longer serves a purpose.”
In a later interview, the Immigration Minister told The Globe and Mail that his department will quickly issue new emergency visas and travel documents. There were serious concerns that facilitation papers would not be accepted by the Taliban or other countries bordering Afghanistan, he said.
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Afghan refugees who supported Canada's mission in Afghanistan prepare to board buses after arriving in Canada, at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Aug. 24, 2021.
MCpl Genevieve Lapointe/Reuters
“We didn’t want them to go to a checkpoint or travel to cross an international border with a document that might not get them through because that might place them at greater risk,” he said. “We are going to issue new documents with new language that says clearly they should be given safe passage to travel for the purposes of resettling in Canada.”
Mr. Mendicino stressed that these refugees will not have to reapply to Canada again. “It will be an automatic reissuing and it will be reissued as quickly as possible,” he said.
Mr. Mendicino announced Canada will resettle 5,000 Afghan refugees as part of a U.S.-led effort to help clear American and allied bases, where tens of thousands of people fleeing the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan have been housed since evacuation flights began in early August.
“These refugees will be accepted as part of Canada’s recently announced humanitarian resettlement program,” he said, adding the arrangement “will also help to reduce current pressures in transit areas that currently host thousands of people”
Among the refugees that Canada intends to accept are Afghan women leaders, human rights advocates, religious minorities and LGBTQ people who are currently in U.S. bases in the Middle East and Europe.
Although these refugees have had their identities confirmed by the Americans, they still need to be screened by Canadian immigration officials and meet the criteria for Canada’s humanitarian resettlement program.
An estimated 123,000-plus refugees have been airlifted out of Afghanistan by the U.S., Canada and other allied nations since Aug. 1, amid deteriorating security conditions as Taliban forces advanced across the country.
Many of them are still at U.S. bases in countries such as Qatar, Kuwait, Spain and Germany. The U.S. is asking allies to either permanently take in these refugees, as Canada has said it will do, or temporarily house them until they can be processed for resettlement in America.
Celebratory gunfire echoed across Kabul as Taliban fighters took control of the airport before dawn on Tuesday following the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops, ending 20 years of war that left the Islamic militia stronger than it was in 2001. Reuters
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