Afghanistan, Di Maio: “Italy is the first EU country for evacuations”

With the evacuation of almost 5,000 Afghans from Kabul, Italy is today “the first country in the European Union for evacuated Afghan citizens and for this I want to thank our intelligence and all the men and women of the Ministry of Defense for the great service “. This was stated by Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio on the arrival of the last flight from Kabul to Fiumicino with 58 Afghan citizens on board, the consul Tommaso Claudi and the ambassador Stefano Pontecorvo. “The last flight from Afghanistan arrived this morning with Afghan citizens on board and the Tuscania carabinieri, without whom we would not have been able to guarantee the presence of our consul Tommaso Claudi and Ambassador Stefano Pontecorvo, civilian representative of NATO in Afghanistan. I want to thank all those who have worked in recent days to evacuate almost 5 thousand Afghans “, he explained. Read also Now, he continued, “the first phase ends and the most difficult phase begins. There are many Afghan citizens who are still waiting to be evacuated: we can no longer do it with the air bridges we have seen in recent days but we are ready with the Nations United and with the neighboring countries of Afghanistan to work to ensure that these people who have collaborated with us in these 20 years have the same chance as the nearly 5,000 Afghan citizens we have evacuated in recent days “. “Just in the last few hours – Di Maio said – I heard the High Commissioner of UNHCR, Filippo Grandi, we invited him to take stock with the United Nations agencies so that together with the non-governmental organizations they can remain in the Afghan territory and represent a garrison for the protection of human rights and health of the Afghan people. We are finalizing the Italian plan for the Afghan people, next week there will be the first Italian inter-ministerial meeting in order to coordinate the initiatives both at the international level of international organizations and at the national level for the reception and training of the many children and boys who have arrived in these days. In this very difficult phase 2, our imperative must be not to abandon the Afghan people, the Afghan women and girls, a people which has shown us a great desire to grow and change a situation that we are seeing degenerate in these days “.