Release of 524 Afghan nationals, including women and children, in Karachi comes a month after a mass detention by police.
The largest number of slots — 40,000 — is set aside for refugees from Africa, followed by 35,000 from South Asia and 15,000 each from East Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Afghans shout for freedom at the Abu Dhabi facility and demand quick resettlement to the US or elsewhere.
US Homeland Security says that about 40 percent will qualify for a special immigrant visa, a lengthy and complex process that ultimately provides permanent legal residency and a path to citizenship.
Afghan protesters, including those who had worked with the US government and military, plan to continue peaceful protests to call for urgent resettlement, advocates say.
The US-China rivalry will force Islamabad to continue focusing on geostrategy.
Fifteen countries made the pledge, according to the EU Commission, but it remains unclear how they would be distributed.
Refugees in Indonesia, the majority of whom are from the Hazara minority in Afghanistan, have been protesting never-ending wait times for resettlement, with one man setting himself on fire last week.
Migrant border crossings have seen a 15-fold increase through Europe's eastern frontier in the first 10 months of this year, EU border agency Frontex says.
The EU has accused Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko of luring migrants from the Middle East to his country only to send them across the border, in retaliation for European sanctions. Minsk denies the claim.
Efforts to stabilise Afghanistan have been undermined by international sanctions, with banks running out of cash and civil servants going unpaid.
Turkey’s President Erdogan highlights urgent need for security to be established in Afghanistan as worries grow about a looming humanitarian disaster following the Taliban’s return to power.
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