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So far, some 6,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan by the United States, although officials want to accelerate that pace, a senior White House official told reporters on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, 1,800 individuals were evacuated in 10 C-17 military aircraft, bringing to 6,000 the total number of people Washington has managed to get out of the country since Aug. 14, when the relocation efforts were accelerated, according to the official.
The source did not break down how many of those people U.S. forces have managed to get out of the country are Americans and how many are Afghans.
Defense Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley had already put the number of evacuees at 5,000 on Wednesday.
The figure of 1,800 evacuees on Wednesday alone is significantly lower than Pentagon estimates, which had intended to evacuate between 5,000 and 9,000 people daily through Kabul airport.
The Taliban took control of Kabul on Sunday, August 15 after their fighters entered the capital without encountering resistance, with almost all the provinces under their control, and following the flight of the hitherto Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani.
It was a day earlier, on August 14, when Washington accelerated the evacuation efforts.
In an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, President Joe Biden admitted that his country’s troops could stay in Afghanistan beyond the August 31 deadline for withdrawal, in order to complete the evacuation of all American citizens.
He did not detail, however, what will happen to the thousands of Afghans and their families who helped the American troops and who are finding it very difficult to reach Kabul airport, where checkpoints have been set up by the Taliban.
