Spain evacuates almost 300 former Afghan collaborators a year after the fall of Kabul

Arrival of former Afghan collaborators of the Spanish troops at the Torrejón de Ardoz air base (Madrid) in August last year. Marshal (EFE)

A plane will transfer a total of 297 former Afghan collaborators from the Defense and Foreign Ministries to Madrid on Wednesday in what constitutes the largest evacuation operation undertaken by the Spanish Government since the withdrawal of Western troops from the country a year ago.

The flight chartered by the Spanish authorities is scheduled to leave Islamabad (Pakistan) and arrive late on the 10th at the Torrejón de Ardoz air base (Madrid).

According to diplomatic sources, 34 of the evacuees are Afghans who were already residing in Pakistan, while the rest are former collaborators with the Spanish troops or the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID) who have managed to leave Afghanistan. and reach the neighboring country by their own means.

Once in Islamabad, the Spanish Embassy provided them with the corresponding visas and the plane ticket chartered by the Spanish Government.

Five of the evacuees are former NATO employees.

According to diplomatic sources, a few weeks ago another flight with a group of Afghan refugees landed at the Torrejón base, but their arrival was not reported so as not to jeopardize this second, much larger evacuation.

Although

reported this Monday that the evacuation of 265 Afghans was finalized, the figure has varied in recent days and could still undergo some last-minute adjustment.

Between August 16 and 27 of last year, after the fall of Kabul in the hands of the Taliban, the Defense and Foreign Ministries organized a rescue operation that allowed them to bring in 17 flights, thanks to an airlift with a stopover in Dubai ( United Arab Emirates), to a total of 2,200 people, of whom 1,671 were former collaborators of the Spanish contingent that was deployed for two decades in the Asian country and their families.

A day before the operation ended, a terrorist attack at the gates of Kabul airport left at least 73 dead (13 of them US Marines), among those who were crowded trying to leave the country.

The rapid collapse of the pro-Western regime in Kabul in the face of the Taliban advance meant that many former employees of the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) that Spain had in the remote province of Badghis between 2006 and 2013 were unable to arrive on time. up to the capital.

The Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, then promised "not to leave anyone behind" and traveled to Islamabad and Doha (Qatar) to ask for the support of their authorities in the evacuation of those who had been trapped in the country.

In October of last year, another 244 former collaborators arrived at the Torrejón base aboard two flights, one civil and one military.

Since then there has been a trickle of arrivals from Islamabad, Tehran (Iran), Ankara (Turkey), New Delhi (India) or Nur-Sultan (Kazakhstan) totaling several hundred people, but not a massive evacuation like the one planned for this Wednesday.

Leaving Afghanistan is very complicated, since the Taliban put many obstacles on leaving and the Pakistani authorities do not allow them to cross the border if they do not have the guarantee that the Afghan refugees are not going to remain in their country.

Last August, the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration organized Operation Antigone to welcome Afghan refugees, almost 30% of whom were children 10 years old or younger.

In April of this year, however, more than a third of the total had already left Spain for other EU countries.

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