Afghanistan’s foreign ministry says Afghans who helped America’s war effort and have been stuck in Qatar in the hope of reaching the United States can safely return to Afghanistan.

The statement on Saturday by foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi comes after reports emerged that the Trump administration is in discussions to potentially send 1,100 Afghans who assisted the US during its war in Afghanistan, and relatives of US service members, to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

An organisation called #AfghanEvac that supports Afghan resettlement efforts said on Wednesday that US officials had informed the group of discussions between the US and the DRC about taking the Afghan refugees who have been in limbo at Camp As-Sayliyah, a US base in Doha, for the past year.

The State Department said it is working to identify options to “voluntarily” resettle the refugees in a third country, but did not confirm which nations were being discussed.

An alternative provided to the refugees was to return to Afghanistan, #AfghanEvac said, where they fear reprisals or even death at the hands of the Taliban for working alongside the US during the two-decade war.