Lord Alf Dubs: Afghans who fled when Kabul fell can finally be together again

The new Government should be commended for righting the three year long injustice suffered by Afghan families separated during Operation Pitting.

Simple measures could reunite other separated families in desperate need.

Labour have been in power for less than four weeks, but they have already announced several welcome changes which will reunite families, save lives and reduce small boat crossings.

As promised during the election, the Government scrapped the Rwanda scheme, choosing to divert the £750 million earmarked for the scheme (under which not a single refugee was forced to relocate to Rwanda) to create a new Border Security Command to dismantle people smuggling gangs. This is a welcome move and will make a real difference.

In the year to March 2024, just 468 refugees were resettled through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) coordinated scheme, which identifies those in need of protection, the lowest number in a decade.

Afghans have consistently represented the highest nationality in small boat arrivals. Whilst the previous Government rightly acted swiftly to establish the Homes for Ukraine and Ukraine Family schemes, Afghan families have been left waiting to reunite with their family for nearly 3 years having been separated during the chaos of the fall of Kabul.

That changes today.

We will never forget the images coming out of Kabul in August 2021. Operation Pitting was the largest humanitarian aid operation since the Berlin airlift.

Despite over 15,000 people having been evacuated in the two-week effort, many were unable to be evacuated, or were separated from their families, and the effects have been devastating.

Wasim is just one example among thousands. He was separated from his parents by a bomb blast in Kabul airport.

He was carrying his baby cousin and hurried onto a flight without his parents and siblings.

Psychotherapists report the impact of such separation on the formative years of a child’s life, with once hopeful children now losing weight and sleep and overwhelmed with guilt and anxiety about the separation.

The Government’s welcome steps today will begin to repair these wounds and help Afghan refugee families rebuild their lives here.

No refugee should be denied the opportunity to be reunited with close family. Other than Switzerland, the UK is an outlier in not allowing refugee children already granted status in the UK to sponsor their parents to join them.

The Refugee Council and Safe Passage International have shown that this is driving children to take dangerous journeys – more than a quarter of children Safe Passage International were supporting to reunite with family in recent years travelled irregularly, risking their lives unnecessarily.

I heard from refugees themselves and experts at a recent Parliamentary inquiry about the failings of the system with long wait times and harsh financial and accommodation requirements on people in the UK to bring close family to join them.

I remember the pain of separation when I fled the Nazis on the Kindertransport.

A fair and controlled immigration system must ensure refugee family reunion is a priority.

The fact that this has now been granted for Afghan refugee families, torn apart by the events in Kabul, is a step we should all celebrate.