Afghanistan: Westerners evacuate their nationals in disaster – BFMTV

Afghanistan is now in the hands of the Taliban. Since Sunday, Western countries urgently repatriate their diplomatic personnel, their nationals and plead, in a joint statement, so that the Taliban let go Afghan civilians wishing to do so.

It is like the rumor of a collapse, the echo of which would ring out in all the capitals of the world. Afghanistan is once again owned by the Taliban. In the space of a few weeks, thanks to a dazzling offensive launched in May and which has accelerated in recent weeks, they regained possession of this country of which they already held the reins twenty years ago, before being dislodged by the United States in 2001.

The withdrawal of American troops will have left them a vacant place and exposed a local power without strength in the face of their Islamist militia. Since Sunday, Western countries have therefore evacuated their nationals in disaster, starting with the staff of their embassies.

And while Emmanuel Macron is due to hold a Defense Council on the Afghan issue this Monday noon, the army has already launched Operation APAGAN, which must empty Kabul of its last French.

The Apagan device to evacuate the French

It is the culmination of a process initiated a few weeks ago, when the Hexagon asked the French to leave this country whose rural regions, then the provincial capitals began to fall one by one into the pockets of those who refer to themselves as – originally both Pashtun and Arab – “students”.

This Sunday, the French ambassador in Kabul, David Martinon, filmed his evacuation and relayed it on Twitter.

It is now a question of allowing all nationals of the Hexagon to leave the premises. This is where Operation Apagan, set up by the Air Force, comes in. It involves two military transport devices. The first, a C-130, took off from the Evreux base overnight from Sunday to Monday. The second – an A400M, a larger plane still and which will be ballasted by around forty soldiers – broke off the runway at the Orleans base at around 8 a.m. on Monday.

The objective is then set, not on Kabul directly, but on the United Arab Emirates where France has set up a joint device which will take charge of the shuttles with the Afghan capital for the next few days.

Anne Genetet, member of LaREM for the 11th constituency of French people living abroad and vice-president of the France-Afghanistan friendship group, took stock on Monday on BFMTV on the populations that remain to be evacuated. According to her, it is also less the concern of our nationals, than of their close circle sometimes made up of locals.

“Today, there are still a few dozen French people, perhaps a little more if we count what we call ‘families’, that is to say people under close protection, people who are not necessarily of French nationality but are part of their family “, she slipped.

“These people have been contacted, they have been asked to approach Kabul international airport as quickly as possible,” the parliamentarian concluded.

Holding the airport

The international airport is about the only structure over which foreign powers still have control in Kabul. To ensure this, the Americans must further strengthen their presence there, by increasing their contingent to 6,000 soldiers – assisted by the British military and what remains of the Afghan army.

These will be supposed to secure the place and air traffic. The stakes are very high: in total, evacuations of 5,000 people are planned daily and lasting for several days from this tarmac.

The French and American authorities are not the only ones to evacuate their nationals now that the power of President Ashraf Ghani is on the ground. Canada, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands are doing the same.

Russian serenity, the call of the international community

The Russian delegation, for its part, displayed a certain serenity, showing its willingness to stay in Kabul. Russia thus claims that it has nothing to fear from the Taliban regime.

In a video, Ambassador Dimitri Zhirnov elaborated: “The important thing is that the Taliban are interested in a peaceful transition of power as they promise us. They guarantee the security of foreign embassies, including ours.”

Visibly less convinced, 66 countries, including France and the United States, united to send a joint statement to the Taliban. The proclamation also recognizes de facto the Taliban victory by addressing “those who find themselves in a position of power and authority in Afghanistan”. “They bear the responsibility for the protection of human lives and the restoration of civil order”, continue the signatories.

Chaos scenes at the airport

Basically, they demand not only that their nationals be spared but also that Afghan civilians who wish to flee be allowed to do so. However, this humanism displayed in writing by Westerners comes up against panic and urgency from the airport. Faced with the invasion of the runways by thousands of Afghans, the American soldiers fired in the air. Scenes of chaos visible in videos circulating on Twitter.

The message posted in English by the account broadcasting the video below speaks volumes. It reproduces in any case the state of mind which is currently in the air in Afghanistan: “People are on their own while the world is watching in silence. The only sensible advice to give to Afghans … RUN “.