UK says thousands of Afghans brought to Britain under secret resettlement programme

Thousands of Afghans who worked with British forces have been secretly resettled in the UK after a leak of data on their identities raised fears that they could be targeted by the Taliban.

The British government disclosed the existence of the resettlement programme on Tuesday.

A dataset containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 Afghans who had applied to come to Britain after the Taliban takeover of their country was released in error in 2022, and extracts were later published online.

That prompted the then-Conservative government to set up a secret programme to resettle the Afghans. The government obtained a strict court order known as a super injunction that barred anyone from revealing its existence.

The injunction was lifted on Tuesday, and Britain's current Labour Party government said it was making the programme public. It said an independent review had found little evidence that the leaked data would expose Afghans to greater risk of retribution from the Taliban.

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