UAE Helps 28,000 People Flee Afghanistan: Official

Afghanistan: The UAE and Qatar have been instrumental staging posts for evacuation flights for Western countries' citizens as well as Afghan interpreters.

The United Arab Emirates has helped evacuate 28,000 people from Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover of Kabul, a senior Emirati official said Thursday. The UAE and Qatar have been instrumental staging posts for evacuation flights for Western countries' citizens as well as Afghan interpreters, journalists and others. Western countries including Britain, France and the US are scrambling to get the last of their citizens and protected Afghans out while Poland and the Netherlands are wrapping up their operations. Of the headline 28,000 to have passed through the Emirates, some 12,000 were evacuated by Britain, and 9,000 by the US.