Afghanistan says allies who helped US war effort can safely return, as Congo relocation discussed

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghanistan's foreign ministry says Afghans who helped America's war effort and have been stuck in Qatar in the hope of reaching the United States, can safely return to Afghanistan. The statement Saturday by foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi comes after reports emerged that the Trump administration is in discussions to potentially send 1,100 Afghans who assisted the U.S. during its war in Afghanistan and relatives of U.S. service members to Congo. An organization called #AfghanEvac that supports Afghan resettlement efforts said Wednesday that U.S. officials had informed the group of discussions between the United States and Congo about taking the Afghan refugees who have been in limbo at Camp As-Sayliyah, a U.S. base in Doha, for the past year. The State Department said it is working to identify options to "voluntarily" resettle the refugees in a third country, but did not confirm which nations were being discussed. An alternative provided to the refugees was to return to Afghanistan, #AfghanEvac said, where they fear reprisals or even death at the hands of the Taliban, who have been running the country since they seized power in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led forces in 2021, for working alongside the U.S. during the two-decade war. Afghanistan's foreign ministry "reiterates that Afghanistan constitutes the shared homeland of all Afghans and it invites all those concerned, as well as others sharing a similar situation, (to) return to their homeland, whose doors remain open to them, to do so with full confidence & peace of mind," Balkhi wrote in his statement. He added that "those intending to travel to another country may do so at an appropriate juncture through legal & dignified channels." Afghanistan's foreign ministry "stands ready to engage with all countries," Balkhi said, adding that the foreign ministry "underscores to all sides that there exist no security threats in Afghanistan, & none is compelled to leave the country on account of security considerations." In a joint statement posted by the #AfghanEvac group on behalf of those in Camp As-Sayliyah, the Afghans said they had received no information from U.S. officials about the talks to potentially relocate them, and had found out about it from the press. The state of limbo they have been living in is taking a severe toll on them, they said. "Many of us are not well. The uncertainty has been more than some of us can carry. There is deep depression," the group said, adding that some were struggling with their mental health because of the situation. "We will say this plainly. We do not want to go to the Democratic Republic of Congo," the group said, adding that "it is a country in its own war. We have been in enough war. We cannot take our children into another one." The African country has been battered by decades-long fighting between government forces and Rwanda-backed rebels in its eastern region. The Afghans in the camp in Doha said returning to Afghanistan was also not an option. "The Taliban will kill many of us for what we did for the United States," the group said in their statement. "This is not a fear. This is a fact. The United States knows this, because the United States is the reason we cannot go home." The relocation discussions, initially reported by The New York Times, come more than a year after President Donald Trump paused his predecessor's Afghan resettlement program as part of a series of executive orders cracking down on immigration. That policy left thousands of refugees who fled war and persecution, and had gone through a sometimes yearslong vetting process to start new lives in America, stranded at places worldwide, including the base in Qatar. ___ Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece.