Emmanuel Lenain, the French ambassador to India, informed that these were the elite Gurkha troops who were guarding his country's embassy in the Afghan capital.

Twenty-one Indian nationals were among passengers who boarded France’s first evacuation flight out of Kabul which took off on Tuesday, Emmanuel Lenain, the French ambassador to India, said in a tweet on Wednesday. The Indian passengers, Lenain said, were the “elite” Gurkha soldiers.

“The first French evacuation flight from Kabul yesterday included 21 Indian nationals: the elite Gurkhas who were ensuring the security of the French embassy. As discussed in call between ministers Jean-Yves Le Drian and S Jaishankar, France coordinated actively with India on Afghanistan, especially at the United Nations Security Council,” Lenain posted on his official Twitter account, tagging the French and Indian external affairs ministers.

The French ambassador was responding to a tweet by president Emmanuel Macron, which informed about the arrival in Paris of the country’s first evacuation flight from the Afghan capital. “The first flight with French and foreign nationals has just arrived in Paris from Kabul via the United Arab Emirates. Once again, with courage and a sense of duty, our soldiers and diplomats are mobilising to protect people,” a rough translation of Macron’s tweet, posted in French, read.

World governments have scampered to evacuate their citizens working in Kabul which, on August 15, became the last major Afghan city to be captured by the Taliban, which led to the terrorist group seizing power in the country. This is for the first time in since 2001 that the Taliban is in power in Afghanistan, after the group was defeated by the US-led forces which arrived here following the 9/11 attacks in New York. In April this year, US president Joe Biden directed that the US troops will withdraw from Afghanistan.

On Sunday, a C-17 aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) brought home 129 Indian citizens, including the ambassador to Afghanistan Rudrendra Tandon. The Kabul Airport is currently being secured by 6000 American troops as desperate Afghans have flooded it in hopes of getting out of their homeland.