Status: 10/30/2021 4:38 p.m.
The last of the Afghans rescued from Kabul in mid-August were flown from the US base in Ramstein to the USA. The biggest humanitarian airlift in history is over.
According to the US, the last of the 34,900 Afghan refugees left Germany again. The army said the last flights had brought the people to Philadelphia in the state of Pennsylvania. From there they were taken to other locations in the United States.
The Afghans were rescued from Kabul in August and flown to the US base in Ramstein in Rhineland-Palatinate.
Many volunteers took care
Ramstein’s role in the largest humanitarian airlift in history is over, according to the US Army. Since their arrival, many organizations had taken care of the refugees. Around 2,500 volunteers from the region were also on duty – for example with catering, English courses, pastoral care, with donations and other support. “We would not have made it without our German partners,” said the Chargé d’Affaires at the US Embassy in Berlin, Clark Price.
The first attempt to fly the remaining refugees to the USA had to be postponed in mid-October. Some people had tested positive for the corona virus shortly before leaving, as an Airbase spokesman said at the time. There were also measles cases.
Difficult rescue operation in Kabul
In mid-August, the radical Islamic Taliban took the Afghan capital Kabul surprisingly quickly. The USA, Germany and other countries then flew tens of thousands of Afghans out of the country within just under two weeks, sometimes under extremely difficult conditions. At times, chaotic scenes played out at the airport in the Afghan capital.
Many of those who had flown out had previously been local workers, i.e. people who had worked in some form for Western countries. After the fall of the government, they feared for their lives and that of their loved ones because the Taliban could view them as traitors. However, numerous local staff could not reach any of the evacuation flights.