They will be able to flee the Taliban regime.
A new flight intended to evacuate foreigners and Afghans wanting to leave the country must take off this Friday from Kabul, where the Taliban consolidate their hold on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks which precipitated the end of their first experience in power.
Forty-nine French nationals and members of their families are on board this evacuation flight from Kabul to Qatar, the second since the end of the Western airlift and the departure of the Americans from Afghanistan at the end of August. This evacuation operation "allows 49 of our compatriots and their dependents to reach Qatar," the French Foreign Ministry announced in a statement, adding that a government chartered flight will then bring them back to Paris. .
An international passenger flight had already left Kabul on Thursday, for the first time since the end of the withdrawal of American and NATO forces on August 30, after two very chaotic weeks at the airport in the Afghan capital.
The planned departure of a second evacuation flight, with 49 French people and their families, this Friday to Qatar, shows that the airport, which had been ransacked at the end of August, is close to being able to reopen to commercial flights, thanks to particularly to the efforts of the Qataris.
"If I can't leave, kill me"
The Qatar Airways flight to Doha on Thursday was carrying around 100 people, including 10 Americans and 11 permanent residents in the United States, 43 Canadians and 13 Dutch.
The announcement of the resumption of flights attracted a few Afghans to the vicinity of the airport on Friday.
A woman, with children each carrying a backpack, tried to negotiate with the Taliban to let her into the compound.
“If I can't leave, just kill me,” she told them.
Thousands of Afghans, frightened by the return of the Taliban or in search of a better life in the West, had massed after mid-August around the airport in the hope of boarding one of the flights of the massive airlift organized by the United States and other countries, which evacuated more than 123,000 people.
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The evacuations had taken place in extreme confusion and had been marked by a bloody attack, claimed by the Islamic State group, which had killed more than a hundred people, including 13 American soldiers.
Among the passengers on Thursday's flight, an Afghan-American said on condition of anonymity that he tried to leave with his family at the end of August.
In vain.
"These are mixed emotions because I leave my mother and my brothers here, and they don't feel safe either," said the father.
But for him, his wife and their four children, “it's very moving to leave,” he admitted.
