An airplane with 98 people evacuated from Afghanistan, of which 41 are Ukrainians, landed at Boryspil airport, Hromadske reported.
“On today’s flight there are 14 citizens of Ukraine and 27 children, that is, a total of 41 people. The rest are family members of the crew members and other citizens of Afghanistan who helped organizationally. Thanks to them, this flight became possible,” the publication quotes Deputy Foreign Minister Yevhen Enin as saying.
According to him, a crowd of people who also wanted to fly out of Kabul prevented the plane from taking off the night before. They surrounded the buses that took passengers to the plane.
“The Ukrainian plane took off the last before the decision was made to close the Kabul airport for an indefinite time. However, even today, after departure from Kabul, new adventures befell us. The Iranian authorities suddenly detained our plane during a technical landing at one of the airports. The situation was unblocked only after personal intervention of Ukrainian ambassador to Iran,” Enin said. The deputy minister said on his Facebook page, that about 50 more Ukrainian citizens, who have expressed a desire to return to Ukraine remain in Kabul.
Earlier it was reported that another plane took off from the Kabul airport (Afghanistan), with more than 100 Ukrainian citizens on board. The corresponding statement was made by Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba during the founding summit of the Crimean Platform in Kyiv on Monday, Aug. 23.
Reportedly, more than 150 Ukrainians, their family members and other foreigners reported a desire to be evacuated from Afghanistan. According to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, two plans are being worked out: the evacuation of citizens by plane, which is already at the Kabul airport, and the evacuation by the plane of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, which departed on Aug. 18 from Kyiv.
On Aug. 15, a Ukrainian private plane took out 79 people from Afghanistan: eight citizens of Ukraine, as well as citizens of the Netherlands, Croatia, Belarus, and Afghanistan.
On the morning of Aug. 22, the Ukrainian military transport aircraft Il-76MD of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which the day before took off from the airport of Kabul, arrived in Boryspil. There were 83 passengers on board, of whom 31 were citizens of Ukraine.
