Doha: a four-star transit camp for Afghan exiles

From the fall of Kabul, Qatar welcomed some 60,000 Afghans but delivers residence titles to the dropper.

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In Qatar, the Park View Villas, a newly built subdivision on the outskirts of Doha, had to open during the World 2022. But the entrance of the Taliban in Kabul, in mid-August, accelerated its commissioning . Instead of being bogged by football supporters or FIFA employees, at the opening of the World Cup, in November of next year, the place was inaugurated, at the end of August, by Afghan refugees .

The residence is one of the sites requisitioned in the emirate to house the people who have fled Kabul and his new Islamist masters, in the airlines of Qatar Airways, the only airline flying to Afghanistan. Thousands of evacuees have been there, in recent weeks, and nearly 400 people live today while waiting for the visa that will allow them to reinstall themselves in a third country, the United States, Germany or elsewhere .

This four-star transit camp consists of a hundred standard design units, connected by trees, bordering handball and basketball courts. Enriched for the occasion of a concert scene and theater outdoors, it has false holiday airs. The stay is fully funded by the Doha authorities, breakfast at the baby diapers, to the Psy sessions and the drawing classes.

Fear of an uncertain future

This is the good humanitarian action of the emirate. Qatar plays, as usual, the role of the charitable intermediary, while ensuring that his guests do not take root at home. Of the 60,000 Afghans passed since August 15 through its territory, a very small handle has obtained the right of residence.

The inhabitants of the Park View Villas, members for most of the Afghan liberal elite, artists, sportsmen or executives of the former government, form a colony of melancholy exiles. All are shared between the relief of having escaped the ferrule of the Taliban, the pain of uprooting and fear of a future still uncertain.

“Half of my body is here, in Qatar, and the other half remained in Afghanistan,” says Khatera, a former employee of the Ministry of Finance, aged 29, the hair covered with an elegant Turquoise shawl. In the Sand Color Maisonette show that this young bride occupies, the lampshade are still covered with their plastic packaging. A large plasma screen, a sofa, chairs, a coffee table and another for dinner complete this summer, summary, impersonal but functional furnishings.

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/Media reports.