Two days after the Taliban captured Kabul, there is still a lot of uncertainty about the situation in Afghanistan. The chaos at the airport, which claimed many lives yesterday, seems to be declining. Evacuations are now slowly beginning.
An overview of the latest developments on the evacuations from Kabul, the situation at the airport, and US President Biden’s speech on the withdrawal from Afghanistan:
evacuation
- Reuters news agency reported that the Kabul airport runway is no longer full of people. A Western security official told the news agency that evacuation flights are now landing and leaving again.
- As far as is known, the Dutch defense plane that was on its way to Kabul has not yet landed. Because of the chaos at the airport, it was diverted. Hundreds of people are still waiting for transportation from Afghanistan to the Netherlands.
- The first German Bundeswehr aircraft landed late last night and departed just before midnight Dutch time. German newspaper Bild reported that only seven people on the official evacuation list were on the plane. It is not clear how many people were on the plane in total.
- Several US Air Force planes are said to have left Kabul airport. One of them detained about 640 Afghan civilians from Kabul. News site Defense One published a photo that was to be taken in the hold of the plane. It can be seen that the aircraft is fully loaded.
