122K were taken out in evacuation

More than 122,000 people have been evacuated from war-torn Afghanistan by the US and its allies.

With less than 24 hours until Tuesday’s 3:29 p.m. EDT deadline to withdraw from the Taliban-controlled country arrives, a stream of US military jets continued to land and take off at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport on Monday.

Other allied countries had already ended their evacuations amid the deadly chaos last week that saw 13 US service members and scores of Afghans killed by an ISIS-K suicide bomber.

The White House said 122,300 people have been removed from Afghanistan since July, 116,700 of them since the Taliban seized control Aug. 14. Approximately 5,400 US citizens have been evacuated in the past two weeks.

In the 24 hours into Sunday morning, about 1,200 were taken out of Kabul on US military flights.

The US has refused to say how many Afghans will be taken in by the United States, but the Defense Department said last week it was building facilities on seven military bases to handle up to 50,000 evacuees.

As of late last week, there were already 21,000 Afghans at Virginia’s Fort Lee, Texas’ Fort Bliss, Wisconsin’s Fort McCoy and New Jersey’s Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.

Additional housing is being set up in Virginia’s Marine Corps Base Quantico, and at Fort Pickett and Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. US officials expect to reach the 50,000 mark by Sept. 15.

Prior to being cleared to fly into the United States, Afghan evacuees are processed by US Customs and Border Protection agents at airbases in Qatar and Bahrain. Once cleared, they are flown to the US air bases to undergo medical screenings and additional checks.

So far, officials say 34 Afghan children have arrived in the US without family members. They are currently in the care of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. Breakdowns from other countries show France has taken in more than 2,600 Afghans, Italy evacuated 4,800 and Germany 4,100.