KABUL (Pajhwok): The government of Australia has confirmed a budgetary plan offering humanitarian places for 16,500 Afghan citizens over the next four years.
The Morrison administration finally bowed to pressure to offer Afghan nationals humanitarian places on top of the existing global intake, The Guardian reported.
The previous offers to help Afghans have been within the overall humanitarian programme, which is capped at 13,750.
In Tuesday evening’s budget, the Australian government announced it would allocate an additional 16,500 humanitarian places for Afghan nationals over the next four years – 4,125 each year.
Officials confirmed these were in addition to the 13,750 “ceiling” for the annual humanitarian programme. The supplementary places are from the 2022-23 financial year.
Immigration Minister Alex Hawke said the move was in recognition of their sustained commitment following Australia’s two decades of operations in Afghanistan.
sa/mud
