the controversy over the 200 pets evacuated from Afghanistan in front of thousands of civilians

The United Kingdom concluded its evacuation operation from Afghanistan on Saturday after the departure of a flight with his last soldiers in the country and said he regretted not being able to dismiss hundreds of Afghan collaborators.

One of the last civilians to leave Kabul was British director of animal charity Nowzad, Paul Farthing, whose campaign for evacuate 200 cats and dogs in a rental plane sparked heated controversy in the UK.

“We are relieved to confirm that Pen and Nowzad’s animals left Afghanistan in the afternoon and are safe and sound.”, wrote this organization on Twitter, as reported by AFP.

This message is currently not available in the organization profile. The last tweet we access, published this Friday, states: “The team is safe but still in Afghanistan. We can’t believe what happened yesterday.”.

The tweet refers to a tweet previously posted by Farthing, which recounted the details of Operation ArK. “All equipment and dogs / cats were safe within 300 yards of the airport perimeter. We were turned away because @JoeBiden @POTUS had changed the paperwork rules just 2 hours before. We walked through the hell to get there and plunged into the chaos of these devastating explosions“.

Farthing’s insistence on removing his animals when many Afghans were left behind, including workers in Nowzad, was widely criticized in the UK.

House of Commons foreign affairs chief Tom Tugendhat told LBC Radio that an Afghan translator who worked for the UK asked him: “Why is my five year old son worth less than a dog?” “.

In the midst of controversy, the British Ministry of Defense reported on Saturday that “a last flight carrying British armed forces personnel has left Kabul”, a message accompanied by a photograph of a few tired-looking soldiers boarding the airplane.

Hours earlier, the UK sent a final plane to evacuate civilians from Afghanistan and made its final efforts to withdraw remaining diplomatic and military personnel before the August 31 deadline for the withdrawal of US troops.

Tasks accelerated after Thursday’s attack, which left at least 180 dead, including 13 US Marines. The attack was claimed by a local faction of the terrorist group ISIS.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson thanked all who participated in the operation and stressed that in less than two weeks 15,000 people were evacuated.

“I want to thank everyone involved and the thousands of people who have served there over the past two decades,” he said in a social media post.

The chief of the British armed forces, General Nick Carter, said the evacuation operation “went as smoothly as possible” but that it was “heartbreaking” not to “have been able to get everyone out. “.

Carter estimated the number of eligible Afghans who had not been evacuated at “hundreds”.

Defense Minister Ben Wallace previously estimated that between 800 and 1,100 Afghans eligible for relocation under the UK regime They “failed” to get out.

LM