Status: 10.09.2021 9:55 p.m.
A second Qatar Airways flight has brought foreigners from Kabul to Doha. Germans should also be among them. Meanwhile, the US has stopped flights with Afghans from US bases because of several measles cases.
Foreigners and Afghans have been flown out of Kabul on another evacuation flight. A spokeswoman for the National Security Council in the White House said that there were 19 US citizens on board.
According to a Qatari official, the Qatar Airways plane flew 158 people in Qatar’s capital Doha. There were also Germans, French, Canadians, British, Dutch and Belgians on the plane. A confirmation from the Federal Foreign Office is still pending. According to the Paris Foreign Ministry, 49 French citizens and their relatives were on the plane.
The TV broadcaster CNN had previously reported, citing television images from the Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera, that a machine from Qatar landed in Kabul on Friday evening. After landing, aid was unloaded.
First evacuation flight since US withdrawal on Thursday
On Thursday, the first evacuation flight after the withdrawal of US troops at the end of August started in Kabul with more than 100 people on board, including 15 Germans. The flight was also organized with the help of the government of Qatar.
The United States is very grateful to Qatar for enabling the emirate to operate flights in Kabul and to ensure security, said the National Security Council of the White House. Independently of this, two Americans and eleven people with US residence permits also left the country by land.
US flights stopped due to multiple measles cases
Meanwhile, the US government has temporarily stopped evacuation flights to the US with Afghan people in need of protection because of several measles cases. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said there were “four cases of measles” among Afghans who landed in the US. The people concerned are in quarantine. The CDC health authority recommended that the flights be suspended for the time being.
The US uses the US air force base Ramstein in Rhineland-Palatinate as one of several hubs for its evacuation mission from Afghanistan. From there, the onward journey of the numerous people who were flown out by the US army after the radical Islamic Taliban came to power is organized. Psaki did not provide any information on how long the temporary stop will last. Vaccination against measles is a prerequisite for Afghans to travel to the United States, she said. They are now looking to see whether vaccinations can also be given at the bases outside the USA where the Afghans are housed.
Stopping flights to the USA is also a problem for America, as it was actually agreed with the federal government that Germany should not be used as a transit country for the airlift from Afghanistan for longer than ten days.