The United States State Department is in talks with countries in Asia and Africa to pick up 1,100 Afghans stranded at a former US military base in Qatar for more than a year. They were evacuated by the Biden administration, but now they cannot enter the US because the Donald Trump administration has banned the entry of Afghans. The US wants to evacuate the former military camp As Sayliyyah and has missed the March 31 deadline, The Wall Street Journal reports. The US is in talks with at least three countries to take these Afghans, two in sub-Saharan Africa and one in Southeast Asia, US officials confirmed to the Journal. Many of these Afghans helped America in the war in Afghanistan. After the US withdrew its troops from Afghanistan in 2021, Camp As Sayalia became a safe haven for Afghans who worked with the US and applied to come to the US. This became their waiting center as the US completed the final clearance process for their paperwork. This process continued until 2024 and many Afghans left the camps and entered the US after their approval. But after Trump came to power, this process was stopped. And now they have no place to go. The State Department said they could not take them to the US and they could not return to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Following the November 2025 shooting in DC by an Afghan working with the CIA on humanitarian parole, the administration barred entry to all Afghan citizens.America wants to close this camp because the State Department will have to spend 10 million dollars every month to keep it running. Qatar also wanted the US to close the camp because it was not sustainable. “According to one of the US officials, the US tried but failed to persuade Arab and Muslim-majority countries to take in the Afghans, prompting them to start negotiations with countries further afield,” the Journal reports. “The real story is the Biden administration’s chaotic and poorly executed withdrawal from Afghanistan, which created a crisis we are still dealing with today, involving many people who were not properly vetted and were placed on a temporary pedestal with promises that could not be kept,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott told the WSJ. The US now offers $4,500 to each principal applicant to return to Afghanistan, and about $1,200 to each family member.
