About 5,000 People Evacuated from Kabul in 24 Hours

About 5,000 people have been evacuated from Kabul airport in 24 hours. A concerned Western official reports this. This concerns security personnel and embassy employees, aid workers and also Afghans. The evacuation is running around the clock.

It is still a big job, according to the spokesman, to keep the evacuations going due to the chaos around the airport. Numerous Afghans use the airport to find a way out of their country that has once again fallen into the hands of the extremist Taliban. The last time, in the years 1996-2001, it was a reign of terror.

There are daily reports of jostling, gunfire and incidents involving Taliban fighters preventing people from going to the airport on social media. Several people were said to have been injured around the airport on Wednesday, and someone was said to have been shot trying to climb over a barrier.

Both the new rulers and the Americans who control the airport and airspace apparently have no interest in the evacuations being delayed by a massive crowd at the airport, as on Monday. The Taliban have said they will allow civilians with necessary travel papers through, and the White House plans to complete the mission by August 31.

But according to some media reports, the Taliban are becoming stricter and are demanding a foreign passport for the trip to the airport building. It is unclear what the US government plans to do with people who have difficulty getting to the airport or do not have US passports. President Joe Biden does not see “Afghan allies” as a priority in the evacuations.