iscover
View Next GalleryFour more RAAF flights have rescued Australians and Afghans from Kabul in recent hours, bringing the total number of evacuees so far to 2,700.
However, Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews has warned the situation in the Afghanistan capital is worsening on an “hourly basis”.
The RAAF is using its C-130J Hercules, KC-30A Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) and two C-17A Globemasters to lead the mission. We’ve updated our gallery, above, with the latest images.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the ADF personnel getting those in danger out are “real heroes”.
“They are going through what is an extraordinarily tense time and they are getting people out,” PM Morrison said.
“We’ve been going like we won’t be able to get another flight in the next day, so we’ve been trying to make every flight as successful as possible.
“We’ll keep doing that for as long as we can. If that deadline [31 August] is able to be pushed out, we’ve made it clear to the United States we support that.”
The Taliban has repeatedly insisted the last day of the month is a “red line” for withdrawal, with its forces currently allowing evacuations to take place without interference.
The White House has responded by saying America will decide when its troops leave.
On Sunday, PM Morrison described Kabul as being a “very chaotic environment” for rescues.
“We are uplifting not just Australians and Afghan visa holders for Australia, but those from the United Kingdom, the United States and New Zealand,” he said.
“We continue to … get as many people through as we possibly can in the time we have available, as safely as we can.
“I can’t guarantee the situation in Afghanistan. Australia is not in that situation.
“The United States are in a very different situation to Australia. We have to work in the environment as we know it and we have to do the best we possibly can.”
Walter James
says:Too little too late. Should have started evacuations when or before the embassy was closed our inaction makes me ashamed to be Australian, something I would never have expected to hear myself say. Morrison and his entire cabinet should be forced to watch the ABC Programme 4 Corners regarding the Vietnamese boat people MG 99 rescued in 1975.
Bill O Really
says:Exactly. Like everything Morrison has done since this contagion arrived, it is done as an afterthought, on the cheap and too late. It was only Labors insistence that income support be given that made him cave in. New ‘immigration isolation facilities’, oh no, too hard. Finally now slowly moving on that. Now this last minute schmozzle, putting brave ADF members at risk and those who previously helped us possibly missing the boat. Now DFAT tells them NOT to go to the airport. Thanks SFM, too little, too late, all the way with every issue he deals with.
David Martindale
says:I saw that it was brilliant
David WW Olley
says:Well done RAAF and all of the ADF for carrying out this job so well.
Marum Katze
says:We had prior experience in Vietnam, with a huge evacuation effort. I would have thought that, this time, the logistics would have been better thought out, and better organized,
When politicians run the show, history always seems to repeat itself.
Congratulations to our military personnel, once more, they have to pick up the pieces of a total SNAFU. The world will never change, until we stop old men sending young men off to fight, for their dreams of glory.
Good luck, and stay safe, boys/girls of the ADF….Marum Katze.
John
says:Well done to all Defence Forces and other Australians involved in this evacuation.
I am sure proceedings were being undertaken before the US made a mess of things.
I am proud to be an Australian and ex RAAF serving member.
AlanH
says:Yes the RAAF are doing the best they can in trying circumstances, but what is it with the weasel words that the evacuees are being taken to “the RAAF’s main operating base in the Middle East”? It’s Dubai! We all know that. Why not just say it? The Government-imposed double-speak is an absolute joke and an insult!