All the Romanian citizens who requested assistance from the Romanian authorities for their evacuation from Afghanistan, are now safe outside that country, the Romanian Foreign Ministry has announced
16 Romanian nationals and 7 belonging to partner countries, five Bulgarians, an American and a British were evacuated last week from Kabul. On Saturday 15 Romanians and four Bulgarians landed in Romania on board of a Hercules plane belonging to the Romanian Air Forces as part of an extremely complicated operation involving several institutions including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Defence Ministry.
One of the repatriated Romanians, who was working for a company in Kabul, said he was blocked for several days in a former military base. He eventually managed to make it to the airport in Kabul in a convoy with 400 other Westerners. "When the Taliban first entered Kabul, it seemed that nobody could be extracted from the area" he said referring to the difficult conditions of his departure. The Romanian Hercules plane did in total three flights to Kabul. Over 30 Romanians had earlier been evacuated by planes of Romania's partner countries.
On August 13th, the Foreign Ministry in Bucharest reassessed and raised the alert level for Afghanistan urging the Romanian citizens to immediately leave that country and avoid any trips around the Afghan territory. On the same day, the head of the Bucharest diplomacy, Bogdan Aurescu summoned an inter-institutional crisis cell, which had to work around the clock to identify and implement rapid solutions for the safe evacuation of the Romanian nationals still in that country. The Foreign Ministry has announced it will continue efforts to bring to Romania the Afghan citizens who worked for the Romanian troops stationed in that country, and even some journalists.
Bogdan Aurescu: "We'll continue our efforts to bring to Romania the Afghan citizens who cooperated with the Romanian troops and the students who got a Romanian scholarship. We are also focusing on some vulnerable categories, such as the Afghan journalists and we are going to keep in touch with the Romanian citizens who are still in Afghanistan, either they want to be evacuated or not."
Romania joined the international coalition in Afghanistan back in 2002 and got actively involved in the war efforts in that country, a large-scale operation kicked off by the United States in response to the 9/11 attacks.
'The Romanian army's mission in Afghanistan is going to enter history books as the longest, most complex and important military operation outside the national territory after WWll', Romanian president Klaus Iohannis said during a ceremony held in Bucharest, a month ago, to mark the end of Romania's mission in Afghanistan, after almost 20 years of uninterrupted presence.
Romania spent 600 million Euros in Afghanistan, lost 27 servicemen while 200 others were wounded.
(bill)
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