Blinken says 300 US citizens still seeking to get out of Afghanistan

By AFP 29 August 2021, 4:53 pm

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In this image provided by the US Marine Corps, soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division assist evacuees during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, August 25, 2021. (Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla/U.S. Marine Corps via AP)

WASHINGTON — Only 300 American citizens still in Afghanistan are seeking to leave the country, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says, just days ahead of the US deadline for evacuations.

“We are down to a population of 300 or fewer Americans who are still on the ground there, and we are working actively in these hours and these days to get those folks out,” he tells ABC.

Some Americans, Blinken says, have chosen to stay beyond the August 31 deadline set to complete the evacuation, but he insists “they are not going to be stuck in Afghanistan.” He says the US has “a mechanism to get them out.”