UK confident it can get Britain Nationals out of Afghanistan – Wallace
The UK government is confident it can get British nationals out of Afghanistan, with plans for hundreds more to leave in the coming days, the defence secretary has said.
The UK government is confident it can get British nationals out of Afghanistan, with plans for hundreds more to leave in the coming days, the defence secretary has said.
Ben Wallace said he had received assurances from the Taliban military leadership via a Middle East country that the airport would be allowed to function, enabling UK officials and forces to help people leave.
He told BBC Breakfast 300 British passport holders had left Afghanistan on Sunday, with the government aiming to fly out a further 1,500 people over the next 24 to 36 hours or slightly longer.
“If we manage to keep it in the way we’re planning to, we should have the capacity for over 1,000 people a day to exit to the United Kingdom,” he said.
“Currently, this is not about capacity on planes, it’s about processing speeds, so that’s why I’m trying to fix that.”
More than 4,000 British citizens are thought to be in Afghanistan and the UK is also evacuating Afghans who worked for the British forces.
Source: BBC
