More Afghans who worked with NATO being resettled in Allied countries

On Tuesday (12 October 2021), seven Afghan citizens arrived in Luxembourg to start a new life. Earlier that day, they left the temporary facilities in Kosovo, where they had been accommodated since their evacuation from Kabul in August and where troops from the NATO Response Force had been helping with housing, care and support, including through individual and family living headquarters, dining facilities, medical and dental centres, meeting rooms, recreation areas for adults and children, and religious accommodations.

“We are grateful to the representatives of Kosovo institutions and to the personnel of the Allied Joint Force Command Naples and Task Force Noble for their great work and coordination with our authorities to ensure a smooth process for the resettlement of these Afghan citizens to Luxembourg. We warmly welcome them and support them as they start a new life,” Ms. Natacha Gomes, Chargée d’affaires a.i. at the Embassy of Luxembourg in Kosovo, said.

Thanks to Allies’ joint efforts, around 2,000 Afghans who worked with NATO, and their families, were evacuated from Kabul in August, as part of the largest evacuation mission in NATO’s history. NATO worked around the clock to coordinate evacuations and the NATO Senior Civilian Representative Ambassador Stefano Pontecorvo and his staff played a key role to this effect. Over the course of two weeks, more than 120,000 people were flown out, on hundreds of Allied flights. Troops from the US, UK, Turkey, and Norway played a key role in securing the airport and operating a field hospital, while around 800 NATO staff maintained key operations such as fuelling and communications. Those joint efforts continue. Over the last weeks, 80 former Afghan employees and their families resettled in Norway, more than 100 in the United Kingdom, around 100 in Germany, and several hundred more in various, other Allied countries.