A third Australian Defence Force plane carrying 80 Australian citizens, permanent visa holders and local employees who have worked with Australia and New Zealand has arrived from the Afghanistan capital.
But the ongoing rescue mission of hundreds of Australian citizens, former interpreters and embassy guards is being hampered by Australian military personnel being unable to go beyond Kabul’s airport due to the Taliban’s chaotic and increasingly violent takeover of the city.
“There are people in their thousands crowding around the entrances to the airport and there have been – unfortunately – injuries as well and we have had to address some of those amongst our passenger cohorts, too,” the Australian foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, said on Saturday – after the flight arrived in Australia on Friday evening. “It is dangerous.”
It has been reported 12 people have been killed in and around the airport, where more than 5,200 US troops are based.
The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, has been advised sending Australian troops in to the city to help people is not viable.
“The United States continues to engage directly with the Taliban about the arrangements … enabling flights to go in and out of the airport,” he said on Friday. “But we are dealing with the Taliban, so I’m not making any assumptions, and I am moving as quickly and as safely as we possibly can to get as many people out as fast as we can.”
More than 240 Australians and Afghan visa holders had been evacuated from Kabul over the past few days, Liberal minister Stuart Robert said on Saturday.
“It brings the total to 690 visas issued to Afghan locally engaged employees who served with us since April and 1,009 since 2013,” he told the ABC.
“The government has announced a further 3,000 places for our humanitarian program will be going to citizens of Afghanistan with priority to women and children and those who have affinity, relatives or closeness to Australia.”
Sixty citizens and Afghans who helped Australia during the war were transported to the United Arab Emirates on Thursday night.
The first Australian flight from Dubai carrying 94 evacuees touched down in Perth in the early hours of Friday.
Australia has defended its allocation of places this financial year in its humanitarian program to Afghans fleeing the Taliban.
Morrison described the figure as a floor rather than a ceiling.
Canada has committed to taking 20,000 refugees, while the United Kingdom will do the same but over five years.
