U.S. Secretary of State Blinken said in a public speech on the evacuation of Afghan personnel on August 25 that the U.S. had evacuated 19,000 people from Afghanistan in the 24 hours from 24 to 25. Since August 14, the United States has evacuated more than 82,300 people.
When it comes to U.S. citizens in Afghanistan, Mr. Blinken said that since the august 14 evacuation began, U.S. officials have contacted as many as 6,000 U.S. citizens, about 4,500 of whom have been safely evacuated and about 1,500 Americans remain in Afghanistan. In the past 24 hours, the U.S. has contacted about 500 more citizens and provided specific evacuation instructions, and the government will contact the remaining 1,000 people through multiple channels to determine whether they are actually U.S. citizens and whether they need to be evacuated, Blinken said.
In addition to U.S. citizens, the U.S. will also offer special immigrant visas to eligible Afghans, Blinken said. He noted that evacuation plans are still at high risk because of uncertainty about the situation in Afghanistan and the threat of possible attacks by extremist groups such as ISIS, but the U.S. is expected to complete the evacuation by August 31.
