Afghan Evacuees Arrive In Spain

Umer Jamshaid Published October 12, 2021 | 12:43 PM

A flight carrying 80 Afghans, people who worked for the Spanish forces and their families, arrived in Madrid on Monday, having been evacuated via Pakistan

Madrid, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Oct, 2021 ) :A flight carrying 80 Afghans, people who worked for the Spanish forces and their families, arrived in Madrid on Monday, having been evacuated via Pakistan.

The military plane landed at the Torrejon de Ardoz airbase near Madrid at 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) on schedule. The defence and foreign ministers were at the airport to meet them, according to a government statement released earlier.

TVE television showed images of men, women and children coming off the flight.

Spanish media, including El Pais newspaper and National Radio, have reported that Madrid would bring close to 250 Afghan citizens, who entered Pakistan in advance and would be flown out on military transport planes.

It was not clear when the second flight is expected.

Spain's evacuations have been weeks in the making, with Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares visiting Pakistan and Qatar in early September to lay the groundwork.

Madrid evacuated more than 2,000 people, most of them Afghans who had worked for Spain and their families, during the western withdrawal as the Taliban seized power in Kabul in August.

But the flights had to stop once the final American troops that had been protecting the Afghan capital's airport left.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in August that Spain would not "lose interest in the Afghans who had remained" in their country but wanted to leave.

The European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, on Friday urged the bloc's member states to host a "minimum" of between 10,000 and 20,000 more Afghan refugees.

"To welcome them, we have to evacuate them, and we're getting down to it, but it's not easy," he said in Madrid.

The EU has said a demand by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to take in 42,500 Afghan refugees over five years can be achieved -- although any decision lies with member states.