30 Britons stuck in Afghanistan – including NHS staff and taxi drivers – are asking for help getting them and their families to the UK, accusing the government of handing them over to the Taliban
- Sixteen men with British passports appeared in the secretly taped video
- A spokesman said they were a group of over 100 British people stranded in Afghanistan
- They urged the UK government not to stray from their citizens and families
- Three months after the Taliban takeover, they felt abandoned by Britain
A group of 30 British stranded in Afghanistan have asked for help in getting them and their families to the UK, accusing the government of handing them over to the Taliban.
Sixteen men, many with British passports, appeared in a secretly taped videoHe called on the British government to evacuate the citizens who remained in Afghanistan more than three months after the Taliban came to power.
A spokesman said the group consisted of 100 British people and that 30 managed to gather in Kabul to record the message on October 18.
He said: “We demand that the government not abandon its responsibility to its citizens and their families. We need to get back to our lives in Britain ”.
The group has been stuck in Afghanistan since the Taliban took control of the country on August 15 following a lightning offensive when the last US troops withdrew after 20 years.
The spokesman said there were NHS staff, construction workers, plumbers, engineers, taxi drivers and a professional boxer among the group and urged the UK government on a video sent to ITV to allow them to get back to their lives in the UK.
The group called for visa requirements to be lifted for their immediate family members and criticized the government for not operating flights from the “fully operational” Kabul airport.
They said evacuation flights for US citizens took off “daily” and asked why the UK government had “abandoned” them and their families.
The message also said Pen Farthing did a “better job” of getting its cats and dogs out of the country when Westminster evacuated its citizens.
The spokesman described how many of the group missed the last evacuation flights from Kabul at the end of August because they were unable to reach a hotel where they had gathered or the airport due to strict controls.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We will continue to do everything we can to ensure safe transit so that British nationals and eligible Afghans can leave the country.”
Sixteen men, many with British passports, appeared in a secretly taped video asking the British government to evacuate the citizens and their families left in Afghanistan
Chaos reigned at Kabul airport in late August when hundreds of thousands of desperate Afghans and foreigners boarded the final evacuation flights from the country after the hard-line Islamist group Taliban came to power.
On the first day of the evacuation, desperate people were seen walking alongside the wing, front and rear wheels of a U.S. military C-17 that was crammed with 800 people – eight times its normal capacity.
At least two people fell to their deaths in Kabul after clinging to the outside of the plane, and the remains of another stowaway – a 19-year-old soccer player – were found in the wheel arch upon landing in Qatar.
Days later, the chaos continued when ISIS-K, an ISIS offshoot in the Afghan province of Khorosan, carried out a suicide attack outside the gates of the airport, killing 170 Afghans and 13 US Marines.
The desperation at the airport was so great that women passed babies over barbed wire to soldiers to take them out of the country.
Afghans desperately tried to climb onto the right rear wheel of the US Air Force’s C-17 in a desperate last-ditch attempt to flee the country after the Taliban came to power
The footage released by the Aśvaka Outlet in Afghanistan showed three stowaways falling to their deaths after clinging to the wheels of a military plane as they took off from Kabul Airport
Babies were thrown over barbed wire at Kabul airport troops to be removed from the country as the shameful withdrawal of the West from Afghanistan continued
