Evacuation flights from Afghanistan have resumed for Westerners, but thousands of at-risk Afghans who had helped the United States are still stranded in their homeland with the US Embassy shuttered, all American diplomats and troops gone and the Taliban now in charge. For the US lawmakers, veterans groups and other Americans who've been scrambling to get former US military interpreters and other at-risk Afghans on charter flights out, the relaunch of evacuation flights did little to soothe fears that the US might abandon countless Afghan allies. An estimated 200 foreigners, including Americans, left Afghanistan on the commercial flight out of Kabul on Thursday with the cooperation of the Taliban. Americans organizing charter evacuation flights said they knew of more US passport and green-card holders in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif and elsewhere awaiting flights out. Hundreds of Afghans who say they are in danger of Taliban reprisals have gathered for more than a week in Mazar-e-Sharif, waiting for permission to board evacuation flights chartered by US supporters.

Source: Irish Independent September 10, 2021 06:00 UTC