Several Norwegian embassy employees in Kabul have been evacuated from Afghanistan between Sunday and Monday, according to Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide (H).
“I can confirm that we evacuated Norwegian employees last night. But we are in the middle of an evacuation operation, and I will not give more details than that,” Eriksen Søreide told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK).
She described the situation in Kabul and Afghanistan as confusing.
“We are now working hard to get out all those we need to get out,” she added.
“Extremely demanding”
Eriksen Søreide called the evacuation work “extremely demanding.”
“It is a very demanding operation, and we are now in the middle of perhaps the most demanding phase,” she said.
On Monday, Denmark’s Minister of Defense Trine Bramsen stated that the Danish defense had evacuated a group of Danes and Norwegians from Afghanistan late the night before. The operation took place under “very difficult conditions.”
Bramsen did not say how many people had been evacuated. Neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Ministry of Defense in Norway could immediately confirm the information to NTB.
Chaos at the airport
In recent days, a stream of foreigners and Afghans have been trying to get out of Kabul.
On Sunday, the Taliban took control of the city while President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. On Monday, there was complete chaos at the airport.
Videos on social media show huge crowds storming the airport, and American soldiers are said to have fired shots into the air to prevent people from entering the runway.
“The crowd is out of control. The shots were fired to gain control of the chaos,” a US official told Reuters.
Several videos show desperate people apparently trying to get into parked planes and climb buildings at the airport.
Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews
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