The Diplomat
Nearly 300 Afghan refugees who, in recent years, collaborated with the Spanish Armed Forces and Cooperation in Afghanistan until the return of the Taliban will be evacuated today to our country from Pakistan, according to official sources.
A plane chartered by the Spanish government is scheduled to leave Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, this morning and arrive in the afternoon at the Torrejón de Ardoz air base in Madrid, carrying a group of around three hundred people. The group consists of defence and foreign ministry staff and their families, who had managed to reach Pakistan after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban.
This is the largest group evacuated to Spain since last autumn and their evacuation will take place almost a year after the entry of the Taliban into Afghanistan and the operation launched by the Spanish authorities to evacuate the Afghans who had collaborated with Spain.
Throughout the second half of August last year, the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs managed to get more than 2,000 people out, in an operation that ended on the 27th of that month, after 17 rotations of the Air Force A400M (Dubai-Kabul-Dubai), ten Air Europa flights (Dubai-Torrejón) and a first A400M flight (Dubai-Torrejón) and a first A400M flight (Dubai-Torrejón).
Just the day before, a double bombing had taken place in the vicinity of Kabul airport, leaving at least 60 Afghan civilians and 13 US military personnel dead.
Once this mission was over, the Spanish authorities continued with efforts to transfer more people who managed to leave Afghanistan by land and were able to be picked up in Pakistan.
