Speed up Afghan relocation backlog, 'planless' PM told

Around 18,000 unique applications for Afghans who say they worked alongside British troops are still waiting to be processed under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap).

- HOLLY BANCROFT, ADAM FORREST, KATE DEVLIN

And 3,400 Afghan men, women and children who have already been approved for relocation under the Ministry of Defence scheme remain stranded in the country in the grips of a Taliban crackdown or have been left to languish in hotels in Pakistan. The failure to act flies in the face of the government’s 2021 pledge to “shift heaven and earth” to move people out of Afghanistan, prompting multiple calls for Rishi Sunak to personally intervene.

Revenge killings, arrests and disappearances under Afghanistan’s rulers have left those who worked with the British in fear for their lives, while those stuck in Pakistan are scared to leave their hotels because their visas have started to run out. General Lord Richards, the former chief of defence staff, said the government’s lack of action was “beyond the pale” and he urged the prime minister to “sort this out personally”.

Labour MP and former soldier in Afghanistan Dan Jarvis called on Rishi Sunak to “get a grip, get a plan and get these brave men and women to safety”, while General Sir John McColl, the army’s former deputy supreme allied commander for Europe, said the government seemed to have “no plan” for how they would relocate these people. He said the government’s requirement that Afghans eligible for relocation should find their own accommodation in the UK before they are moved was “an extraordinary ask” that “they know is impossible”.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, former head of the British army, said the process of getting entitled people to the UK should be “sped up”, and Lord Alf Dubs – a child refugee who fled the Nazis before the Second World War – said it would be a “disgrace to ignore people we’ve promised to help”.