Status: 09.09.2021 10:25 p.m.
Of the more than 100 people who left Kabul on a charter flight today, 15 are German citizens. This was confirmed by the Federal Foreign Office. And there is hope that another flight will be able to leave Afghanistan on Friday.
As part of the first evacuation flight from the Afghan capital Kabul since the end of the international military operation, 15 German nationals were also flown out. This was stated by a spokesman for the Federal Foreign Office. They were flown out with the help of the government of Qatar and they were mainly women and children.
“The opportunity to leave the country was available at very short notice. We will continue to work intensively on creating more options for leaving the country in the next few days and will actively inform the people concerned about this,” said the spokesman. He thanked the Qatar government for the close and trusting cooperation over the past few weeks.
Number of passengers unclear
The National Security Council of the White House announced that the Taliban had shown themselves to be cooperative in the operation. According to a report by the Washington Post, the passenger list of the chartered aircraft of the Qatari airline Qatar Airways included 211 Afghans with dual citizenship, including people with passports from Germany, the USA, Canada, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands and Ukraine. Later, in circles familiar with the process, only “about 113” passengers were spoken of. According to official information, these included 13 Dutch and 13 British citizens.
Another flight on Friday?
The Qatari special envoy for Afghanistan, Mutlak al-Kahtani, spoke of a “historic day” for Kabul airport. This is an important step on the way to “reopening the airport for international flights”. He hoped that another flight could take off on Friday.
Qatar is a key player in the Afghanistan crisis. In the Gulf state, negotiations between the Taliban and the US government about a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan took place in 2020. Negotiations were later held in Qatar between the militia and the Afghan government at the time.
Airlift for a few weeks
The evacuation flights from Kabul, which began after the Taliban came to power, were suspended at the end of August. About 123,000 people were flown out of Afghanistan via the international airlift within a few weeks. But not all foreigners wishing to leave the country made it out of the country in time. Numerous interpreters and other Afghan local staff from the foreign troops were also left behind. Many of them now fear acts of revenge by the Taliban.