Factbox-Evacuations from Afghanistan by country

People who have been evacuated from Afghanistan arrive at Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle airport after Taliban insurgents entered Afghanistan's capital Kabul, near Paris, France, August 18, 2021. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier

(Reuters) – The United States and other Western powers are pressing on with the evacuation from Afghanistan of their nationals and some of their Afghan staff from Kabul airport, from where about 8,000 people have been flown out since Sunday, a Western security official said.

Thousands of people have desperately tried to get past Taliban roadblocks and U.S. troops to reach the airport. On Thursday the Taliban urged crowds of Afghans waiting outside it to return home, saying they did not want to hurt anyone, a day after firing at protesters and killing three.

EUROPEAN UNION

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Thursday about 100 EU staff and 400 Afghans working with the EU and their families had been evacuated, but that 300 more Afghans were still trying to leave.

UNITED KINGDOM

Britain is unable to evacuate unaccompanied children from Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said on Thursday when asked about footage of a young child being handed over a wall to Western soldiers at Kabul airport.

Britain’s ambassador said his team had evacuated about 700 people on Tuesday and hoped to scale up the operation in coming days.

A spokeswoman for Britain’s foreign ministry said that since Sunday, approximately 1,200 people had left Kabul on flights for the United Kingdom.

UNITED STATES

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said on Wednesday that in the previous 24 hours U.S. military flights had evacuated approximately 2,000 more people.

The Pentagon is aiming to evacuate up to 22,000 Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants, their families and other at-risk people.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said there were about 4,500 U.S. military personnel in Kabul and there “have been no hostile interactions with the Taliban and our lines of communication with Taliban commanders remain open.”

AUSTRALIA

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, facing criticism over plans to evacuate citizens and some Afghans from Kabul, said on Thursday that bad weather in the coming days may delay rescue flights.

Australia has evacuated 26 people on one flight from Afghanistan, and Morrison said a further 76 were transported out of Kabul late on Thursday on a British plane.

GERMANY

Germany has evacuated some 500 people from Afghanistan since Sunday, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Wednesday, adding that a fifth of the rescued people were Afghan nationals.

FRANCE

Twenty-five French nationals and 184 Afghans were evacuated from Afghanistan overnight, French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Wednesday.

SPAIN

Spain plans to airlift around 500 people including Spanish embassy staff and Afghans who worked with them and their families from Kabul, radio station Cadena SER said on Wednesday, citing sources close to the evacuation.

NETHERLANDS

The Netherlands said it got 35 of its citizens and 20 other foreign nationals out of Afghanistan on Wednesday, in a slow start to its evacuation operation amid chaos outside Kabul airport.

A flight, which included 16 Belgians, two Germans and two British passport holders landed in Amsterdam late on Wednesday, the Foreign Ministry said on Twitter. It added that brought the total number of Dutch nationals evacuated to 50.

CZECH REPUBLIC

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said on Thursday his country’s rescue operation to evacuate Czechs and Afghans who worked for the Czech embassy or as interpreters had ended. The country sent three flights to Kabul since Sunday, evacuating Czech citizens, as well as 170 Afghans.

DENMARK

Denmark’s prime minister said 84 people were evacuated on Wednesday from Afghanistan on a military plane.

HUNGARY

Hungary said on Wednesday it had organized the evacuation of a group of 26 Hungarian nationals working as contractors from Afghanistan and they would return to Hungary shortly on a flight organised by another country.

POLAND

Poland has evacuated around 50 people from Afghanistan, a deputy foreign minister said on Wednesday, a day after Poland said it had around 100 people on an evacuation list.

JAPAN

Japan is in close contact with a “small number” of its nationals still in Afghanistan, seeking to ensure their safety after Taliban militants took over Kabul, the government’s top spokesman said on Wednesday.

Japan has closed its embassy and evacuated the last 12 personnel, officials said this week.

CANADA

Canada plans to resume military flights to Afghanistan to evacuate civilians as the United States regains control of the Kabul airport, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) said late on Tuesday.

INDIA

An Indian air force plane evacuated over 170 people from Kabul on Tuesday, including India’s ambassador to Afghanistan, a government official said.

TURKEY

President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey has evacuated 552 citizens from Afghanistan so far, including around 200 people flown from Kabul to Islamabad by a military plane on Wednesday. A Turkish Airlines plane was scheduled to bring them to Istanbul from Islamabad later the same day.

SWITZERLAND

The Swiss government said it was working to evacuate 230 local aid agency workers and their families from Afghanistan and bring them to Switzerland.

Around 40 local employees who worked for the Swiss Development Agency in Kabul and their families will be allowed into Switzerland in a humanitarian operation, the government said.

(Compiled by Catherine Evans and Hugh Lawson; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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