UK churches are ready to welcome Afghan refugees and help them settle into life in a new country after fleeing Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

The Welcome Churches network is asking people to donate towards its Emergency Afghan Fund that will provide help to Afghan families being evacuated to the UK. 

Dr Krish Kandiah, who is working with the fund, said, "Churches around the UK are responding with the love of Christ to the needs of the Afghan refugees.

"Families have had to flee a war zone with only what they could carry and they are in need of our love and support as they enter the UK and become neighbours in our communities." 

He has identified three ways that UK churches can help. 

"Firstly pray, secondly join the Welcome Churches network so your church can be trained and prepared to help practically, and thirdly give so we can quickly get practical help to the people that need it," he said. 

The Diocese of Chelmsford has said it is standing ready to serve and support Afghan refugees across its parishes. 

It has some experience in this already, having resettled 250 refugees since 2015, including families fleeing the Syrian conflict, and Afghan interpreters and their families escaping the Taliban. 

With the Taliban taking control of Afghanistan in recent days, the diocese says its resettlement programme will now be "widened and reshaped to work alongside partners in providing the care, love and support to which the gospel calls us." 

The Bishop of Chelmsford, Guli Francis-Dehqani, and the Diocese's Refugee Coordinator, the Rev Canon Gareth Jones, are asking people to pray for Afghanistan and all those working to support the people affected by the Taliban takeover.

"As pictures of the catastrophic impact of the crisis in Afghanistan fill our TV screens, the human cost in lives devastated seems too much to comprehend, and many of us are left wondering what we can do to help in the face of such great tragedy," they said. 

"As a diocese committed to serving Christ in the downtrodden, persecuted and oppressed, and to witnessing to the transforming presence of Christ in the midst of the seemingly impossible, we continue to stand ready to do all that we can to serve and support refugees in our parishes across East London and Essex, and those communities seeking to walk alongside displaced people.

"Our Refugee Engagement Team is ready and resourced to support parishes in welcoming and supporting Afghan refugees over the coming months and years, and to building on the life changing work already done since 2015."

They added, "Please join us in praying for the people of Afghanistan, together with all those engaged in efforts to bring peace, security and support for those in need." 

The Archbishop of York, the Most Rev Stephen Cottrell, is asking people to pray and give. 

"Whether we should or should not have intervened in Afghanistan 20 years ago is a matter for debate, but leaving this way is causing a humanitarian disaster. Please pray. Please give. And let's be ready to receive the refugees who will be displaced by the tragic events before us," he said.