“Until and unless ops resume at Kabul airport, it will be difficult to say how people will be evacuated. It will be easier once the operations resume," Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson for the ministry of external affairs, said

The Union ministry of external affairs on Thursday said that it would be difficult to say how people would be evacuated from Afghanistan until the Kabul international airport resumes operations. Mentioning that the evacuations would be easier once the airport starts running again, the ministry said that it is watching the situation in Afghanistan to bring back the Indians and Afghan nationals willing to come.

“Until and unless ops resume at Kabul airport, it will be difficult to say how people will be evacuated. It will be easier once the operations resume. We are watching this, so that the remaining Indians and Afghans willing to come can be brought here,” news agency ANI quoted the ministry’s spokesperson Arindam Bagchi as saying.

In its last update on August 27, the ministry had said that over 550 people, including more than 260 Indians, were evacuated from Afghanistan by India under the operation Devi Shakti. The airlift was carried out in six separate flights either from Kabul or Dushanbe. Bagchi had said that the number was excluding the Indian embassy personnel who were also being evacuated simultaneously. Further, Indian nationals were also evacuated through other “countries and partners,” he said. The ministry had also said that its focus was on evacuating Indian nationals from Afghanistan.

The US took control of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul following the Taliban’s rapid takeover of Afghanistan and the capital city. Earlier this month, the first international commercial flight, following the pull-out of US troops, left Kabul with 113 passengers comprising US and UK citizens among several other nationals, news agency Reuters reported.

So far more than 120,000 people were taken out of Afghanistan by the US and allied nations since the Taliban began their takeover. On August 31, US President Joe Biden said that his administration had estimated between 100 and 200 citizens left in Afghanistan and had assured them they would be evacuated.