Afghanistan crisis: Evacuation stories from across the globe - in pics

India's complex mission to evacuate its citizens and Afghan partners from Kabul after its swift takeover by the Taliban last week has been named as "Operation Devi Shakti". The name of the operation was known when External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar mentioned it in a tweet on Tuesday (August 24) while referring to the arrival of a fresh batch of 78 evacuees in Delhi. So far, India has evacuated over 800 people amid a deteriorating security situation in Kabul and scramble by various nations to rescue their citizens. (Pic: ANI)

Britain says it has evacuated 8,600 UK Citizens and Afghans from Kabul in recent days, 2,000 of them in the last 24 hours (as on August 24). But Defence Secretary Ben Wallace conceded that "we're not going to get everybody out of the country" before the US-led mission ends on August 31. Britain and other allies are pressing President Joe Biden to extend the evacuation past the end-of-the-month date agreed with the Taliban. But Wallace told Sky News it's unlikely Biden will agree.

Prominent Afghan women's rights activist Zarifa Ghafari is now in Germany together with her family members. Ghafari landed at Cologne/Bonn airport late on August 23 after fleeing Afghanistan to Pakistan last week. Armin Laschet, the governor of Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia state who met Ghafari, said it was important to help as many women as possible to leave Afghanistan in the coming days, Germany's DPA news agency reported.  Ghafari became the mayor of the Afghan town of Maidan Shahr in 2018, at the age of 26.  According to the State Department, she has survived at least six assassination attempts. (Pic: PTI)

Australian Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said that Australia has helped evacuate more than 1,600 people from the Kabul airport in 17 flights since last Wednesday (August 18). "We have achieved this by working very closely with the US and the UK, among other nations," Andrews told Parliament on Tuesday. The evacuated people include Australian citizens, Afghan nationals who had worked for the Australian government during the 20-year conflict and other countries' nationals. The Australian government has not said how many people it planned to evacuate from Afghanistan.  

Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide says the evacuation deadline in Afghanistan should be extended beyond August 31. "One of a main concern is that the airport will be closed," Eriksen Soereide told Norwegian broadcaster TV2 on Tuesday morning. "The civilian part is closed now, so we are completely dependent on the US military operation being maintained in order to be able to evacuate." So far Norway has evacuated 374 people from Afghanistan. Like Eriksen, in neighbouring Sweden, Foreign Minister Ann Linde said that she too could not guarantee that they can help all those who want to get out. (Pic: PTI)