LONDON, 16 (DPA / EP)
The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense confirmed this Monday the additional dispatch of another 200 military personnel to Kabul airport, to assist in the evacuation of British citizens and diplomats, as well as those Afghans and their families who collaborated with London during its presence in Afghanistan.
“We will use all the means at our disposal”, said the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dominic Raab, who has appealed to the union of international partners to “exert a positive influence” and “control the worst excesses of the past” carried out by the Taliban.
“We must consolidate and try to stabilize the achievements, which are considerable, that we have achieved with so much blood, sweat, tears and loss of life, more than twenty years, and that is what we are committed to doing,” Raab told the exit from an emergency meeting with the security cabinet.
“It was not what we wanted, but we have to deal with the new reality,” said Raab, in relation to the new security situation in the Afghan capital and its airport, the scene of chaotic scenes in recent hours, with hundreds of Afghan citizens trying to leave the country.
In total, with this new deployment, there will be about 900 military personnel in evacuation tasks. It is expected that in the “next few days” some 350 British citizens and Afghan collaborators will be able to leave Afghanistan. In this case, Raab has reported that 289 of these people have already managed to reach the UK “during the last week”.
For its part, the Ministry of the Interior has indicated this Monday that more than 3,300 asylum applications from Afghan citizens have been admitted, among personnel who worked for the British diplomatic delegation and their families, although “it will be guided by the capacity of the local authorities “to welcome these people before deciding how many of them can be relocated to the UK.