Ottawa, July 24 (AP) The Canadian government said on Friday it would expedite the resettlement of potentially thousands of Afghans who have worked with Canada over the past 20 years, but gave few details about who would be eligible. Or the Taliban will start coming when people are now in danger.
The government is facing pressure from Canadian veterans, worried that Afghans who supported them and their families would face arrest and even death at the hands of the Taliban.
Immigration said, “For the safety and security of the Afghans as well as the Canadian teams that are already on the ground, we must preserve the precise details of how this operation will be carried out, as well as when it will begin.” ” Minister Marco Mendicino.
The withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan encouraged the Taliban to capture parts of the country. The occupied territory includes parts of the southern province of Kandahar, where the Canadian military spent the longest time during its 13-year mission in the country.
Canada lost 158 soldiers and seven civilians in Afghanistan before the troop withdrawal in 2014, most of them to hostile actions by the Taliban.
Mendicino said the government already has teams on the ground working to identify people who are at risk of working with Canada and that immigration officials will fast-track asylum applications from eligible people. .
“Our focus is on people who have had important and lasting relationships with the Canadian government,” he said.
Mendicino also encouraged Afghans now living in Canada to go straight to their offices if they believe their families back home are at risk and eligible.
Canada had previously rehabilitated nearly 800 Afghan civilians and their families in two separate programs launched in 2008 and 2012 before the end of the military mission.
Mendicino said that “several thousand” people may be eligible.
Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan said for security reasons he could not say how the refugees would reach Canada or if the Canadian government was seeking space on evacuation flights planned by the US and other allies.
“I can assure you that we are involved in planning the logistics and security of how this will happen,” he said. (AP) India
(This story has been published as part of an auto-generated Syndicate wire feed. Headline or body have not been edited by ABP Live.)
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