The Bundeswehr is continuing its efforts to evacuate German citizens and Afghan local staff from Kabul. Two more planes landed at Frankfurt Airport on Thursday night with a total of around 500 people who had been brought to safety from Afghanistan.
The planes – one from Lufthansa and one from Uzbekistan Airways – had taken off from the Uzbek capital Tashkent a few hours earlier. According to the airline, there were around 250 people on board the Lufthansa plane who had previously been flown from Kabul to Tashkent on a Bundeswehr plane. According to information from the airport operator, about 240 people were sitting on the plane of the state airline Uzbekistan Airways.
According to the Federal Ministry of Defense, another A400M had previously flown directly from Germany via Baku to Kabul. In addition to “the pallets on board with supplies from Germany”, 15 people to be evacuated were admitted there before the machine flew to Tashkent. Several military transporters of the Bundeswehr commute between Kabul and the Uzbek capital Tashkent, from where the evacuees are to start their onward flight to Germany.
The Taliban had taken power in Afghanistan much faster than expected in the past few weeks. Germany and other western states are now trying to get their citizens and Afghan aid workers out of the country in quick action. Due to chaotic conditions at Kabul airport, the evacuation operation began slowly on Monday. In the meantime, the situation has eased somewhat and the runway can be used continuously for take-offs and landings.
Left calls for rescue operation beyond Kabul
The left calls for an expansion of the ongoing evacuations of people at risk in Afghanistan beyond the capital Kabul. “Most of the local staff, teachers or courageous local politicians or journalists do not live in Kabul, but rather spread over the provinces of Afghanistan,” said parliamentary group leader and top candidate Dietmar Bartsch of the German press agency. “The existing agreements with the Taliban should be expanded as quickly as possible.”
According to US President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, the militant Islamist Taliban had promised to let civilians unmolested at the airport in Kabul so they could leave the country. A spokesman for the Federal Foreign Office said on Wednesday that you can only fly people in Kabul and only there if they make it to the airport. For Germany, the ambassador to Afghanistan, Markus Potzel, is currently holding talks with Taliban representatives in the Gulf emirate of Qatar, according to Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD).
It must be examined how evacuations would also be possible via other airports, with transport helicopters or via roads from cities such as Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz or Kandahar, demanded Bartsch. “The NATO states owe it to their local staff and families to do everything possible to save them.”
Bartsch’s co-top candidate for the federal election and party leader Janine Wissler told the newspapers of the Funke media group with a view to possible refugee movements that it was to be feared that very few people would be able to leave the country at all. “As the richest state in the European Union, Germany naturally has to take in a large number of these people who are now coming from Afghanistan. There are capacities for this. ” (dpa)
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