DUBAI (Al Jazeera) – Hundreds of Afghans living in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) since being evacuated from Afghanistan in the wake of the August 2021 Taliban takeover have held protests, demanding that what they call a slow and opaque resettlement process be sped up.
The Afghan demonstrators carried banners and shouted for reprieve on Monday and Tuesday during demonstrations inside the Abu Dhabi facility housing them, according to Reuters, which cited two Afghans living there.
They estimated that thousands of Afghans were still living in the temporary housing, awaiting resettlement to the United States or other countries.
“Nearly one year, we have been here in detention and the camp is like a modern prison. No one is allowed to go out, they don’t know when (we) will be settled permanently to any country,” one Afghan who declined to be identified, told Reuters.
Pictures and video showed children and adults protesting in the facility, known as Emirates Humanitarian City.
One boy held a small banner that read: “One year is enough!”
Some chanted “we want justice” while wearing blindfolds reading “freedom”, others bound their wrists, in an apparent gesture to what some Afghans said are prison-like conditions in the facility, according to video viewed by the news agency.
While the UAE has said it is committed to ensuring Afghan evacuees can live in safety, security and dignity, an official told Reuters that the resettlement process was taking longer than Abu Dhabi wanted, and that there were frustrations.
The official said the UAE was working with the U.S. embassy to resettle the Afghans in the U.S. or elsewhere.
The unrest follows similar protests in February, prompting a visit by a U.S. State Department official who said all Afghans there would be resettled by August.
At the time, there were an estimated 12,000 Afghans at the facility in Abu Dhabi and another site nearby.