In the days following the Taliban takeover in August, a US-led multinational airlift helped many international passport holders and Afghans to flee on hundreds of hastily coordinated evacuation flights from Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport. US Pentagon officials said that the US-coordinated airlift evacuated nearly 125,000 people. Evacuees included many international staff of embassies and nongovernmental organizations, as well as others in the country holding foreign passports. But many thousands of Afghans who sought to flee, many of whom fear for their lives under Taliban rule, were not evacuated. Several hundred foreign passport holders are also believed to remain in the country.
Among Afghans who were evacuated with their families were those who had been granted visas linked to their service alongside coalition military forces or who had worked with foreign-funded programs. A smaller number of the Afghans seeking visas or asylum based on their fear of persecution due to their identity were also able to board planes as refugees, as were those with family members living as citizens abroad on the basis of family reunification.
Many Afghans who may have been eligible under these criteria were unable to secure a visa or a flight or get access to the airport in time. Most civilian evacuation efforts ended after a bombing attack outside the airport on August 27 killed scores of people.
