Walsall Council is discussing plans to increase support for the government’s Afghan Relocations and Assistance policy.
This includes potentially increasing the number of overall families relocated in Walsall to 27 families (approximately 120 individuals).
80 Afghan individuals have already been approved for relocation in the borough in early July and the Walsall cabinet is currently arranging plans to relocate another forty individuals over the coming weeks.
Councillor Mike Bird Leader of Walsall Council Leader said:
“You have only to turn on the news or your phone, to see the scale of the crisis in Afghanistan and how quickly violence has escalated. In the light of this rapidly changing situation, Walsall Council is recommending that we support a further forty men, women and children on top of the 80 people we had already pledged to help earlier. Put simply this is the right thing to.”
“Since August and until flights from Kabul were suspended – we have already helped 69 people through the government’s Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy. Walsall Council and the wider borough has mobilised at speed and whilst it has recently welcomed 15 families to the borough, the urgency of the current situation must means that we – along with other local authorities across the land, must do everything we can to help. These people have played a vital part in supporting the British Army’s operations in Afghanistan with interpretation and translation skills and we will do all that we can to support them.”