Uganda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gen. Jeje Odongo has said the government has yet to decide whether to accept Afghan refugees.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs Gen. Jeje Odongo has said the Ugandan government is yet to decide on hosting Afghan refugees into the country.
Odongo made the remarks on Thursday during Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee where several MPs tasked him to explain the government’s reported plan to host up to 2,000 refugees from Afghanistan.
He said like many other countries, Uganda too was approached because of its international humanitarian record of aiding those in need but raised that this is a matter that is still under discussion.
“No decision has been made, whether they will come or not. It’s a suggestion, a proposal, discussions are going on…no substantive decision has been made,” Odongo said.
Odongo, in addition, told the committee chaired by Buliisa Woman MP Norah Bigirwa, that government will after proper insight into the matter offer a well-researched report on the matter.
This however comes at a time when the Minister for Relief, Disaster Preparedness, Hon Hilary Onek, told Parliament earlier this week that the Afgan Refugees will be hosted on donor’s funds specifically America that requested.
Onek who was responding to several questions concerning the matter also rubbished allegations that Namboole stadium will act as a home to these Afghans. He said this is baseless and not true.
Onek told Ugandans that government will station them in a gazetted place preferably a hotel.
“Because it is the one bringing them here for us to hold them here, while the American government is processing their documents for onward journey to America. So that is the information we got.
We shall put them in hotels…after all our hotels have been starving of customers. So hotels should also start earning money from this undertaking,” Onek said.
Uganda intends to bring in up to 2,000 Afgan refugees whose country has fallen under the control of the Taliban according to an earlier confirmation from the Foreign Affairs ministry.
“Following last weekend’s events in Afghanistan, the U.S. government has reached out to several of its international partners, including Uganda, to assist in the likely need to temporarily house some Afghans and international citizens who may be evacuated,” part of a statement from the ministry read this week.
“President Yoweri Museveni has expressed Uganda’s readiness to assist, including (for) the temporary accommodation of some of those affected by the current crisis,” the statement added, citing Uganda’s “long history and tradition of welcoming refugees.
