A senior Qatari government official informed on Monday that in one of the largest evacuation flights from Afghanistan since the Taliban’s hostile takeover, 353 people including an unknown number of Americans set out from Kabul to Doha on Sunday, CNN reports.
It was the the ninth evacuation flight from Kabul to Qatar and is carrying faculty staff and students from the American University of Afghanistan as well as Afghan, US, Dutch, Danish and Australian citizens, among others, according to an official who did not say how many Americans were on board.
After they arrive in Doha, the passengers will be tested for Covid-19 in a facility currently hosting evacuees and will remain in Qatar until departing for their ultimate destination.
The eighth evacuation flight last week was the largest passenger evacuation flight from Kabul since late August carrying357 passengers, including over 100 male and female Afghan footballers, to Doha onboard a Qatar Airways charter flight on Thursday.
The United States evacuated about 6,000 American citizens and another 124,000 civilians between August 14 and August 30, with around 100 Americans still remaining in Kabul, according to officials’ estimates.
US State Department spokeswoman Jalina Porter informed on Friday that total of 36 US citizens have left Afghanistan after Washington withdrew its forces from Afghanistan.
After the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, Qatar has emerged as a key player in efforts to evacuate citizens since it has maintained ties with the Taliban for years.
Qatar, which has been a close US ally and hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East, also houses a political office of the fundamentalist militants in Doha.
According to the Qatari officials, Doha will remain focused on providing humanitarian aid to Afghanistan continuing at the same time to work with international partners on efforts that ensure freedom of movement in the country, including through serving as an active mediator between various parties.
Qatar has been facilitating the evacuation of people from Kabul to Doha since mid-August and, according to the Qatari Foreign Ministry, over 58,000 out of the 114,000 people that have left Afghanistan on evacuation flights have travelled to Qatar, where they are hosted temporarily before departing to their onward destinations.
Earlier this month, US media reported that the US intends to resume evacuation flights from Afghanistan by the end of this year, but the State Department said on Thursday the US has no plans to resume military-led evac flights from Afghanistan and is working to ensure increasing of the number of the existing charter flights.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price refuted the idea of the US restarting evacuation flights like those prior to August 31 and stressed that its goals are to make the charter flights, that have already been a routine, to allow certain degree of automaticity to the operations so that the departure of Americans, of lawful permanent residents and others can be facilitated.
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