Army Major General William Taylor, with the U.S. military’s Joint Staff, told a news briefing more than 10,000 people were at Kabul airport waiting to be evacuated from Afghanistan.
The Pentagon claimed it evacuated some 19,000 people in the past 24 hours. More than 70,000 people, foreigners and Afghans, have been evacuated since August 14, the day before the Taliban swept into Kabul.Meanwhile, ten million children in Afghanistan are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, UNICEF Afghanistan warns as the UN’s World Food Programme seeks $200m in food aid.
David Beasley, executive director of WFP said 14 million people – one-third of the Afghan population – face food insecurity “because of several years of drought, conflict, economic deterioration, compounded by COVID”.
The World Bank has suspended aid to Afghanistan, freezing hundreds of millions in funding. It has provided $5.3bn since 2002 and has 27 projects there. Last week, the IMF blocked the delivery of payments.
(ITALY) Italian military planes have transported nearly 1,000 Afghans out of Kabul in the last 24 hours, bringing to 4,400 the number of Afghan nationals who worked with Italian institutions and charities flown to safety. The Defense Ministry made the announcement.
A total of 3,959 Afghans have been flown onward to Rome during the air bridge, comprised of 63 flights since June.
(TUKEY)Turkey has started evacuating its troops from Afghanistan, the National Defense Ministry said.
“Turkish Armed Forces is returning to our homeland with the pride of successfully fulfilling the task entrusted to them,” a ministry statement said.Since 2002, the Turkish Armed Forces have operated in Afghanistan under the UN, NATO, and bilateral agreements to contribute to the peace, welfare, and stability of the Afghan people, the statement said.
(Lithuania)
Two planes carrying Afghan interpreters who earlier worked with Lithuanian forces in Afghanistan and their families touched down in the Baltic country.
A total of 170 people have been evacuated to Lithuania from Kabul through Warsaw, in Poland.
In Norway, two planes from Afghanistan with a total of 278 passengers landed in Oslo, the Norwegian news agency NTB reported.
(USA) United States military commanders in Kabul are communicating regularly with Taliban authorities about the specific credentials people need to get into the airport to leave the city, Pentagon officials said.
“We’ve been very clear with Taliban leaders about what credentials we want them to accept. It’s American citizens, SIV applicants and vulnerable Afghans,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, referencing the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) programme for Afghans who worked for the US.
“We have shared what the proper credentials are and by-and-large – not saying it’s been perfect – but by-and-large the people that we have made clear to the Taliban we want to have access through the checkpoints, have been able to get through,” Kirby said.
There have been reports of people with credentials being blocked from the airport and in the Pentagon has acknowledged sending helicopters on three occasions to extract people from the city.
