Inside the Afghan resettlement process in London
Within hours of Afghan refugees' arrival in the UK, local councils sprang into action, as one volunteer explains
As the last evacuation flights left the international airport in Kabul at the end of August, I received an urgent email from my local council in London.
“As you know from the news,” it said, “there is a massive effort for donation [sic] for the Afghanistan Refugees as many of them are coming to the country with nothing. [We have] a mass of donations but the problem is […] urgent help is needed sorting everything.” The email ended on a plaintive note: “This is a massive task and any help you could give would be very greatly appreciated.”
I’ve been volunteering for the past 18 months, during the pandemic, on the council’s community outreach efforts and vaccination programme, so I signed on.
What I found on arrival was remarkable. A grand hotel near a tube station in south-east London had become the temporary home …
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