BEIJING, China (AFP) – According to the company that carried out the emergency chartered flight, China evacuated 210 nationals from Afghanistan as US soldiers sped up their exit from the war-torn country.
On July 2, a Xiamen Airlines aircraft from Kabul, Afghanistan, to Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, carried Chinese people who had been stuck in Afghanistan, according to a social media post on Thursday (July 8).
Despite the airline implementing “top-notch epidemic prevention measures” throughout the trip and upon landing, 22 individuals were later proven to be sick with the coronavirus.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry acknowledged that recent returns contained coronavirus patients and urged all Chinese citizens to leave Afghanistan, but did not provide any more details about the evacuation flight.
“The Chinese government has reminded nationals in Afghanistan to leave the country as soon as possible and offered appropriate support,” its consular affairs department said in a social media statement on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Chinese health officials identified 25 additional imported coronavirus cases in Hubei province, 22 of which were linked to the Kabul aircraft.
The flight was organised by the Chinese government, according to the state-run Global Times tabloid.
After two decades of brutal fighting in the country, US President Joe Biden has promised that American soldiers will leave Afghanistan by August 31.
With the Taleban having recently routed most of northern Afghanistan, worries are increasing that the government’s grip of a few of provincial capitals may wane.
In recent weeks, Beijing has slammed what it perceives as Washington’s premature and disorderly retreat.
“The US disregards its obligations and duties and withdraws soldiers from Afghanistan hurriedly, leaving the mess and war on the Afghan people and nations in the area,” said Wang Wenbin, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
“As the initial perpetrator of the Afghan problem, the United States has inescapable responsibility for the current state of affairs in Afghanistan.”
At a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation next week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will discuss the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan with his colleagues from Russia, India, Pakistan, and a number of Central Asian nations.
Chinese social media users praised the evacuation flight as a patriotic triumph, with associated trending hashtags receiving more than 300 million views on the microblogging site Weibo. The pilot was cited in the Xiamen Airlines article as stating, “This trip is not simple to fly even once; we cannot leave a single comrade behind.”