More than 10,000 waiting to be evacuated at Kabul airport: US

The United States says it evacuated 19,000 people from Afghanistan in the past 24 hours as US President Joe Biden’s August 31 withdrawal deadline looms.

United States Army Major General William Taylor, with the US military’s Joint Staff for Regional Operations, told a news briefing that more than 10,000 people were at Kabul airport waiting to be evacuated from Afghanistan.The Pentagon claimed it evacuated some 19,000 people in the past 24 hours. More than 70,000 people, foreigners and Afghans, have been evacuated since August 14, the day before the Taliban swept into Kabul. Meanwhile, 10 million children in Afghanistan are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, UNICEF Afghanistan warns as the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) seeks $200m in food aid.

David Beasley, executive director of WFP, said 14 million people – one-third of the Afghan population – face food insecurity “because of several years of drought, conflict, [and] economic deterioration, compounded by COVID”.

The World Bank has suspended aid to Afghanistan, freezing hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. It has provided $5.3bn since 2002 and has 27 projects there. Last week, the International Monetary Fund blocked the delivery of payments.

US military unable to rescue stranded Americans outside Kabul: Pentagon

The United States military does not have the capability to rescue stranded US citizens and Afghans who want to leave the country but are unable to get to Kabul, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said. “I don’t want to set the expectation that we’re going to be able to fly all over the country to pick-up people,” Kirby told reporters.

The Pentagon has confirmed the US military used helicopters to airlift people into the airport on three occasions and the US government is receiving calls for help from others ..............

Source: aljazeera.com