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News|Taliban

In Pictures: Evacuation flights resume at Kabul airport

Military planes resume evacuation from Afghanistan a day after the runway was crowded with people trying to leave the country.

Evacuees crowd the interior of a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft, carrying some 640 Afghans to Qatar from Kabul. [Handout/Defense One via Reuters]
Published On 17 Aug 202117 Aug 2021
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Military flights evacuating diplomats and civilians from Afghanistan resumed early on Tuesday after the runway at Kabul airport was cleared of thousands of people desperate to flee after the Taliban seized the capital.

The number of civilians at the airport had thinned out, a Western security official at the facility told Reuters, a day after chaotic scenes in which US troops fired to disperse crowds and people clung to a US military transport plane as it taxied for take-off.

“Runway in Kabul international airport is open. I see airplanes landing and taking off,” Stefano Pontecorvo, NATO’s civilian representative said on Twitter.

By the afternoon, at least 12 military flights had taken off, a diplomat at the airport said.

Under a pact struck last year, the Taliban agreed not to attack foreign forces as they leave.

US forces took charge of the airport, their only way to fly out of the country, on Sunday, as the Taliban fighters were winding up a dramatic week of advances across the country with their takeover of the capital without a fight.

Flights were suspended for much of Monday, when at least five people were killed, witnesses said, although it was unclear whether they had been shot or crushed in a stampede.

US soldiers stand guard along a perimeter at the international airport in Kabul. [Shekib Rahmani/AP Photo]
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Indian Nationals sit aboard an Indian military aircraft at the airport in Kabul to be evacuated after the Taliban's stunning takeover of Afghanistan. [AFP]
Afghan people sit as they wait to leave the Kabul airport after thousands mobbed the facility trying to flee. [Wakil Kohsar/AFP]
French and Afghan nationals wait to board a French military transport plane at the airport in Kabul. [AFP]
France's ambassador to Afghanistan David Martinon, left, waits with French and Afghan nationals to board a French military transport plane at the airport in Kabul. [AFP]
French soldiers stand guard near a military plane at the airport in Kabul. [AFP]
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An Afghan girl waits after arriving at Fiumicino airport in Rome, Italy. [Handout/Italian Ministry of Defence via Reuters]
Nepalese arrive at the international airport in Kathmandu after they were evacuated from Afghanistan. A total of 118 Nepalese working in the American mission in Afghanistan were evacuated. [Narendra Shrestha/EPA]
The first flight carrying evacuated personnel of British Embassy staff and British nationals arrives at RAF Brize Norton, England, early on Monday. [Sharron Flyod/Ministry of Defence via AP]
Afghan people gather outside the French embassy in Kabul waiting to leave Afghanistan. [Zakeria Hashimi/AFP]
Afghan people climb atop a plane as they wait at the Kabul airport on Monday. [Wakil Kohsar/AFP]

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