Over 200 Indians including Foreign Ministry staff and paramilitary soldiers tasked for his or her protection are yet to be evacuated from Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, sources have told NDTV.
An Indian aircraft is parked at the chaotic Kabul airport, sources said, adding the large concern is the way to safely bring the staff from the Indian mission compound to the airport. The Taliban has enforced a curfew within the city, they said.
The Indians stranded in Kabul include some 100 personnel of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police or ITBP, tasked with protecting the Indian mission in Afghanistan.
The Afghan airspace has been closed to commercial flights after thousands of desperate people overran the tarmac this morning within the hope of getting out of the war-torn country, every day after the Taliban took control of town. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has already left the country.
The Cabinet Secretary is meeting with Foreign Ministry officials to figure out the evacuation plan, which is already in situ, in detail, sources said.
Questions are being raised on why the Indian mission staff weren’t evacuated within the last three-four days when true on the bottom was changing fast, sources have said. The missions of other nations within the war-torn country had been reducing when Taliban started taking city after city before encircling Kabul and entering town on Sunday.
With Afghanistan’s airspace closed, Air India flights coming from the US are likely to be re-routed, sources said. Flights AI-126 (Chicago-New Delhi) and AI-174 (San Francisco-New Delhi) will must re-routed to a Gulf nation to refuel, they said, adding Air India is additionally performing on new routes for flights which will depart later from India to the US.
The Afghanistan Civil Aviation Authority asked all transit aircraft to reroute, adding any transit through Kabul airspace would be uncontrolled, agency Reuters reported. Kabul’s flight information region covers all of Afghanistan.
Five people were killed at Kabul airport today, but it’s unclear whether or not they died in firing or stampede, Reuters reported.
The Taliban took control of Afghanistan after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and conceded the terrorists had won the 20-year war. The astonishingly quick collapse of the govt, with terrorists taking up the presidential palace on Sunday night, was what triggered fear and panic in Kabul.
