Over 1,000 Afghans may be relocated to DR Congo under US-led talks
They spent years working alongside American forces and organisations during two decades of war in Afghanistan. Now, more than a thousand of those Afghans may find themselves resettled not in the United States they were promised, but in the Democratic Republic of the Congo — a country grappling with its own deep-rooted security challenges.
The Trump administration is weighing a plan to transfer approximately 1,100 Afghan nationals currently housed in Qatar to the DRC, as Washington seeks a workaround for a U.S. visa pipeline that has ground to a near-halt following policy changes introduced in 2025.
Shawn VanDiver, who leads the advocacy group #AfghanEvac, confirmed that U.S. officials had briefed him on the proposal. He was blunt in his assessment, describing the idea as “unacceptable” and pointing to the persistent security situation in Congo as a central concern.
The Afghans in question were transferred to Qatar specifically to complete immigration procedures for entry into the United States. Many had direct ties to U.S.-backed organisations during the war, while others have family members already living in America. Despite years of waiting since the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, their cases have remained in limbo. A federal judge ruled earlier this year that restrictions placed on certain Afghan visa processes were unlawful, yet processing has remained largely stalled regardless.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson told Reuters that relocating Afghans to a third country “would be a positive solution that would give them a chance to start a new life outside of Afghanistan,” though the official stopped short of confirming whether the DRC had been formally selected.
The relocation proposal does not exist in isolation. It sits within a rapidly expanding web of U.S.–DRC agreements that have redrawn the diplomatic relationship between Washington and Kinshasa in recent months. At the centre of that relationship is a Strategic Partnership Agreement focused on the DRC’s vast critical minerals sector, covering resources such as cobalt and copper that Washington views as essential to countering China’s dominance in global supply chains.
In February 2026, the two governments convened the inaugural Joint Steering Committee meeting in Washington, formally activating cooperation under the framework. A joint statement from the session made the commercial ambitions clear: “U.S. companies will receive preferential access to these assets… creating the conditions necessary for meaningful investment in the DRC’s critical minerals sector.”
Running parallel to the minerals deal, the DRC also agreed to accept third-country nationals deported from the United States — an arrangement that has already moved from paper to practice. Fifteen South American nationals deported from the U.S. arrived in Kinshasa on April 17, marking the first confirmed implementation of that agreement, according to Al Jazeera. The move is part of a wider U.S. push to establish third-country deportation arrangements across Africa, with similar agreements reportedly involving Eswatini, Uganda, Ghana and Kenya.
For Kinshasa, the breadth of these discussions signals an expanding role in U.S. foreign policy that now stretches well beyond economics into migration and humanitarian affairs. For the Afghans in Qatar, it raises the prospect of an outcome far removed from what they were led to expect — and, for advocates like VanDiver, one that raises urgent questions about the obligations Washington owes to those who served alongside it.
By: Andrews Kwesi Yeboah