Western Morning News (Saturday)
Minister condemns ‘bullying’ animal evacuation supporters
DEFENCE Secretary Ben Wallace has said supporters of a former Royal Marine seeking to evacuate animals from Afghanistan have “taken up too much time” of senior commanders dealing with the humanitarian crisis.
Paul ‘Pen’ Farthing, who founded the Tiverton-based Nowzad shelter in Kabul, is aiming to get 200 dogs and cats out of the country, alongside animal shelter staff.
The charity worker said that his team and the rescue animals had managed to reach Kabul Airport on Thursday, only to be “turned away” due to changes in paperwork rules made by the US some hours earlier, and subsequently were caught up in the terror attack that killed US troops and Afghan civilians.
Asked if the marine has been a diversion to the overall evacuation mission, Mr Wallace told LBC: “I don’t think I would say he personally has”, adding: “I think it has taken up too much time of my senior commanders dealing with this issue when they should be focused on dealing with the humanitarian crisis.” Mr Wallace used a series of tweets on Thursday to hit out at criticism from
Mr Farthing’s supporters and condemned “bullying, falsehoods and threatening behaviour” towards Ministry of Defence staff. He told LBC “noone blocked a flight”, adding: “There are desperate, desperate people, and I was not prepared to push those people out of the way for that. When people’s time is right, they were called forward, and that’s the right thing to do. But I hope he comes back, he was advised to come back, his wife came back last Friday, so I hope he does as well.”