On the morning of the 17th local time, the first group of 118 Nepalese citizens evacuated from Afghanistan arrived at Tribwan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal, where they had worked at the U.S. Embassy.
In an interview with local media, Santosh Ballave Poudyal, a spokesman for the Nepalese army, said nine Indian citizens who had worked at the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan had also taken the same flight with the evacuated Nepalese citizens to Kathmandu via Kuwait.
Nepal’s military medical institutions will conduct new coronavirus testing for withdrawn personnel and, based on the results, decide whether to disband their homes or be centrally isolated in isolation centres set up by the Nepalese government.
In the fiscal year from July 2020 to July 2021, 1,073 Nepalese citizens obtained labor permits to work in Afghanistan, according to Nepal’s Overseas Work Administration. Over the past seven years, more than 8,000 Nepalese citizens have been granted labour permits to work in Afghanistan, and the number of Nepalese workers who are not licensed to work but remain in Afghanistan is expected to exceed 14,000. (Reporter Zhang Wei)
