Sweden says it has finished its evacuations from Kabul following airport blast

By AFP 27 August 2021, 4:50 pm

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People gather to check on missing relatives a day after a twin suicide bombs attack, which killed scores of people including 13 US troops outside Kabul airport, at a hospital run by Italian NGO Emergency in Kabul on August 27, 2021. (Aamir QURESHI / AFP)

Sweden says it has ended its evacuations out of Kabul, after airlifting more than 1,100 people to Sweden in the wake of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.

Those evacuated included embassy employees and their families, locally employed guards and their families, members of the armed forces and 500 Swedes, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde says.

In addition, Sweden also evacuated women’s rights activists, journalists and European Union employees.

But Sweden was unable to assist all those on the “Sweden list” consisting of people seeking help to flee the country.

“The incredibly difficult and risky conditions meant we were not able to evacuate more Swedes and local employees,” Linde tells reporters.

Meanwhile, neighboring Norway, which announced Thursday that it was also ending its evacuations, says today that another 128 people had landed in Oslo, bringing the number of people airlifted by the country to 1,098.

A final plane was expected later in Norway Friday.