The US government is reportedly discussing relocating Afghans currently housed at a former US base in Qatar to the Democratic Republic of Congo, AfghanEvac, a group aiding former US allies, said Tuesday.
About 1,100 Afghans — roughly 400 of them children — remain at the As Sayliyah camp in Qatar after being moved there following the withdrawal of US-led international forces from Afghanistan in 2021. The group includes interpreters who worked with the US military, Afghan military commandos and family members of US soldiers, The New York Times reported first.
Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac, said his organization suspects the plan could be a way for Washington to send these people back to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. AfghanEvac described the Congo proposal as an attempt to “manufacture a refusal,” saying: “Offer these families relocation to an active war zone in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, knowing they cannot accept. Wait for the predictable no. Then use that no as the public justification for sending them back to Afghanistan.”
“You do not relocate vetted wartime allies, more than 400 of them children, from American custody into a country in the middle of its own collapse,” the group added.
The DRC faces its own acute humanitarian crisis. UN figures show about 6.9 million internally displaced people, especially in the east where fighting between the national army and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels has been intense. The country also hosts over 517,000 refugees from neighboring states, largely from the Central African Republic, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan.
The State Department declined to confirm that the DRC was the planned destination but said the United States is exploring “voluntary resettlement” from As Sayliyah. A State Department spokesperson said moving the camp population to a third country could provide safety for those remaining and allow them to start new lives outside Afghanistan while maintaining the safety and security of the American people.
Since the Taliban took power in August 2021, more than 190,000 Afghans have been resettled in the United States. President Donald Trump, who took office in January 2025, has pledged to curtail migration and ordered a halt to refugee processing for people from Afghanistan after an Afghan man shot two National Guard troops near the White House in November, killing one. The shooter had worked with US intelligence and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Trump set a March 31 deadline to close the As Sayliyah camp in Qatar.
Edited by: Louis Oelofse