Blinken: ‘About 340’ Americans have been evacuated from Afghanistan since US withdrawal

“Since August 31, until today, we’ve got out – of the Americans who said they wanted to leave – about 340,” said CNN’s Blinken Dana Bash on State of the Union.

“Since then, this has happened: More people have come forward in two ways. There were a small number of Americans in Afghanistan who didn’t want to leave, who have now seen that we have successfully got some of the few that remained.” Americans out who have now come up and said, ‘We want to go,’ and there are a few hundred of those who are ready to go and we will work to get them out, “said Blinken, adding, that some other Americans the department had not previously identified as potential evacuees who asked for help leaving the country.

Blinken’s comments come two months after the US completed its military withdrawal from Afghanistan after the Taliban took over the country. Although the vast majority of Americans in the country before the Jan.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said earlier this month the department had formed a team to coordinate through government agencies and with outside groups to facilitate the departure of American citizens, legal US permanent residents and Afghans.

The precarious situation was underscored earlier this month after most evacuation flights scheduled to depart Afghanistan for a week were abruptly canceled, according to a State Department email to US citizens in the country verified by CNN. The email did not say why the flights were canceled and urged recipients to “be ready to travel at short notice” given the rapid development of the situation.

Blinken, who noted on Sunday that many of the remaining Americans in Afghanistan are still there because their “whole lives” are in the country, affirmed that the US will work to evacuate its citizens for as long as necessary.

“There is no deadline for this effort. We will keep bringing it out,” said the secretary.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/31/politics/antony-blinken-afghanistan-americans-evacuated-cnntv/index.html