While speaking about the ongoing evacuation of US personnel from Kabul airport, President Biden said it has to be done amid ‘pain, loss’, and ‘heartbreaking images’. ‘There is no way to evacuate this many people without pain and loss and the heartbreaking images you see,’ Biden said, adding that he hopes it will not extend beyond August 31.
At the airport, thousands of Afghans clamber to get out of the country in order to escape Taliban rule, hampering the evacuation process. Over the weekend, at least seven people were killed as people continued to flood the Hamid Karzai airport by the thousands. ‘We know terrorists may attempt to exploit this,’ US President Barack Obama said, adding, ‘It’s still a dangerous operation’.
Six commercial aircrafts have been ordered by the Biden administration to speed up the evacuation process, namely Delta, American Airlines, Atlas, Omni, Hawaiian Airlines, and United Airlines, to assist US citizens and other personnel in leaving the airport quickly. According to the US president, at least 15,000 Americans and 50,000 Afghans, including interpreters who helped the US army fight against the Taliban in the past 20 years, need to leave Afghanistan.
Read more: Multiple glitches in income tax portal: Finance ministry summons Infosys CEO
With 23 military flights carrying 3,900 people airlifted on Sunday, the US government accelerated the evacuation process. Coalition partners have also assisted on a massive scale. Despite the long road ahead, Biden cautioned that there is still much that can go wrong. The Taliban said that the Americans were responsible for the chaos at the airport, saying they failed to restore order. In the wake of the Taliban taking control of Kabul last Sunday, at least 28 thousand people have been evacuated.
Post Your Comments