Where are the evacuation operations in Afghanistan?

109,000. This is approximately the number of people who were evacuated from Afghanistan, via the airport in Kabul, the last enclave in the country still occupied by Western forces. While the UK civilian evacuation operation ended on Saturday, some 5,400 people are believed to be still in the airport grounds, waiting to board a plane, the US general said. Hank Taylor, specifying that the exfiltrations would take place “until the last moment”.

Before the United Kingdom, several countries had already announced that they had ended their evacuation operations, including France. But Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Sweden have also announced that they have finished their flights, like Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Turkey or Australia before them.

“Very few” aircraft still evacuating civilians via Kabul airport

And according to the head of the British armed forces, General Nick Carter, there are now only “very few” aircraft still evacuating civilians via the Kabul airport. As indicated above, according to the latest figures from the US government, approximately 109,000 people have been exfiltrated since August 14, the day before the Taliban took power in Kabul.

France, which ended its airlift on Friday evening, left the country “nearly 3,000 people, including more than 2,600 Afghans”, according to the Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly. The British Ministry of Defense, for its part, indicated that more than 14,500 people had been evacuated since August 13, including about 8,000 Afghans eligible for the program intended for Afghan personnel employed locally by the United Kingdom.

And, for his part, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson assured that he would move “heaven and earth” to continue to bring people out of Afghanistan after the August 31 date scheduled for the withdrawal of American soldiers, at the after twenty years of war.

Italy has evacuated more Afghans than any other country in the European Union

And with nearly 5,000 people leaving Afghanistan, Italy has evacuated more Afghans than any other country in the European Union, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio said on Saturday. The last plane of the airlift set up by Italy arrived Saturday morning with 58 Afghans on board, bringing to 4,900 the number of Afghan citizens evacuated by Italy in a few weeks. Diplomatic and security personnel who were still present in Kabul also returned on Saturday morning. Rome now hopes to be able to exfiltrate other Afghans with the help of the UN, NGOs and states in the region.

“There are still so many Afghan nationals waiting to be evacuated and we can no longer do it with the airlift, but we are ready, with the United Nations, with the countries bordering on Afghanistan, to work to guarantee to these people, who have worked with us for the past twenty years, to have the same possibility, ”underlined Luigi di Maio.

And to add: “A first phase ends and begins now the most difficult phase. A second phase in which our imperative must be not to abandon the Afghan people, not to abandon Afghan women, not to abandon young Afghan women, not to abandon all those who over the years have shown a great will to evolution, change. “

“We weren’t able to get everyone out and it’s heartbreaking”

Italy was, along with the United States, Turkey, the United Kingdom and Germany, one of the five countries most involved in NATO’s “Resolute Support” mission. The last Italian contingent, made up of a few dozen soldiers, left Herat in western Afghanistan at the end of June. According to the Italian Ministry of Defense, 723 Italian soldiers were injured and 53 lost their lives, out of a total of 50,000 soldiers deployed in the last twenty years in Afghanistan.

And while the risk of other attacks persists and Jen Psaki, the press secretary of the US president, deemed another attack “likely”, the US embassy in Kabul on Friday evening asked its nationals to leave the vicinity of Kabul airport “immediately”. For his part, this Saturday morning, General Nick Carter, said he could not “get everyone out” and that this finding was “heartbreaking”.