The last British flight evacuating civilians from Afghanistan has left Kabul, bringing to an end an operation that has airlifted almost 15,000 Afghan and British citizens in the two weeks since the Taliban took control.
Britain’s armed forces are now preparing to leave and will take small numbers of Afghan citizens with them on remaining flights this weekend, a defence ministry spokesperson said on Saturday.
“It’s time to close this phase of the operation down. But we haven’t forgotten the people who still need to leave, and we will do everything we can to help them,” Britain’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Laurie Bristow, said in a statement filmed on the tarmac at Kabul’s main airport.
Some British troops have already departed, and a British military transport plane carrying others landed at an airbase in southern England on Saturday.
British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said on Friday that Britain was entering the final hours of its evacuation and would process only people who were already inside Kabul airport.
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