German officials have been slammed after sending a massive plane capable of carrying 135 passengers and only collecting seven people from the huge crowd because everybody else was not on the list.
A second German evacuation flight has now been sent and landed in the Afghan capital but there shows no signs of the criticism abating after the first one rescued only seven people, despite the possibility to save many more as it held a passenger capacity of 135 people.
The Airbus A400M Atlas, which was the first to land, circled for five hours over the Kabul airport which was temporarily closed due to the chaotic conditions on the tarmac after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan on Monday, 16th August.
According to local media NDR, Germany landed their second evacuation plane in Kabul on Tuesday on 17th August.
After almost running out of fuel, the first German Air Force aircraft managed to board only seven passengers during its 30-minute-stay before it headed back towards Germany.
The rescued people involved five Germans, a citizen from another European country and one Afghan native working for the Bundeswehr.
Blaming airport chaos after the Taliban takeover, Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) reported: “We had very little time, so we only took people who were on-site. We couldn’t rescue more people yesterday as the chaotic situation prevented them from being at the airport.”
A spokesperson for the Federal Foreign Office of Germany said that due to the “chaotic circumstances at the airport and regular shootings at the access point, it is not guaranteed that other German nationals in need of evacuation would have access to the airport at all without the protection of the Bundeswehr.”
The spokesperson also reported that they were left on their own after the admission of people from the civilian part of the airport was not made possible by the partners exercising security responsibility at the airport.”
Kramp-Karrenbauer added: “We have a very confusing, dangerous and complex situation at the airport, especially because of the crowds. We managed to bring the plane to the ground in a really breakneck landing.”
The minister reported that they also “brought soldiers there [at the airport] who are now protecting the area so that the people we want to evacuate have the opportunity to get to the plane at all. That was the main task.”
Kramp-Karrenbauer announced that she plans to send up to 600 Bundeswehr soldiers to secure the evacuation operation in Afghanistan.
NDR reported that a second Bundeswehr plane landed at the Kabul airport on Tuesday on 17th August, whose aim according to Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany Heiko Maas will be to “build a stable airlift in order to bring German citizens, local workers and other people safely to Germany.”
Mass continued: “We hope that we can build a real airlift together with the Americans in the next few days.”
Meanwhile, many public figures criticised the Bundeswehr’s inefficiency and described the rescue of only seven people as shameful.
German artist Igor Levit tweeted: “In the face of disaster, not filling the plane with people is incomparably inhuman. It’s shameful. Those in charge don’t understand what war is. I’m speechless. Seven people. Seven. Because the others were not on the list.”
Additionally, German journalist of Pakistani descent Hasnain Kazim said: “Hello, Federal Army, did you save only seven people from Kabul where you had a chance to land? Is it because you only have these people on your list? Are you serious?”
Lower Saxony’s Interior Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) called on the federal government to act quickly on Monday and emphasized that the Bundeswehr must “get out whoever they can get out”.
During a press conference on Monday, German Councilor Angela Merkel reported that the Bundeswehr must cooperate with international partners in order to rescue as many people as possible because of “the extremely difficult conditions in Kabul.”
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Story By: Feza Uzay, Sub-Editor: James King, Agency: Newsflash
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