
Australia completes Afghan rescue flight.
Australia's first RAAF flight out of Kabul this week picked up just 26 people, comprised of Australian citizens and Afghan nationals with Australian visa, plus one foreign official who worked for an international agency.
That flight landed at an Australian airbase in the UAE on Wednesday morning.
"The transfers are done to our base in the Emirates, where capacity has already been established with medical support available, to provide that medical support and to process their further onward transfer to Australia," Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.
RAAF rescue mission from Kabul lands in UAE https://t.co/jytluODLhE
— ABC News (@abcnews) August 18, 2021
The PM made no mention of the Afghan interpreters who worked for the Australian army over the past two decades whose lives are now at risk as the Taliban seek revenge.
Morrison said efforts to extract Australians and Afghans who helped allied forces over the past two decades would ramp up in subsequent flights.
"This is not a simple process," he told reporters in Canberra.
"It's very difficult for any Australian to imagine the sense of chaos and uncertainty that is existing across this country, the breakdown in formal communications, the ability to reach people."
READ MORE: Exactly what you can do to help people in Afghanistan right now.
Regular flights are scheduled in coming days but forecast poor weather may hamper evacuation efforts.
Cabinet's national security committee is meeting daily to discuss getting people out of Afghanistan, which is now under Taliban control.
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