Reuters: Britain set up a secret scheme to relocate thousands of Afghans to the UK after a soldier accidentally disclosed the personal details of more than 33,000 people, putting them at risk of reprisals from the Taliban, court documents showed yesterday.
A judge at London’s High Court said in a May 2024 judgment first made public yesterday that about 20,000 people may have to be offered relocation to Britain, a move that would likely cost “several billion pounds”.
Britain’s current defence minister John Healey said that around 4,500 affected people “are in Britain or in transit … at a cost of around 400 million pounds”.
The government is also facing lawsuits from those affected by the breach, further adding to the ultimate cost of the incident.
A Ministry of Defence-commissioned review of the data breach, a summary of which was also published yesterday, said more than 16,000 people affected by it had been relocated to the UK as of May this year. The British government was forced to act after the breach revealed the names of Afghans who had helped British forces in Afghanistan before they withdrew from the country in chaotic circumstances in 2021.
