Boris Johnson has signalled that the British evacuation mission in Kabul is coming to an end, saying the “vast majority” of eligible Afghans have now been flown out.
Speaking to broadcasters on a visit to the Permanent Joint Headquarters in north London, where he met military personnel coordinating the evacuation effort, the prime minister said the government now faced the challenge of helping the refugees integrate into British society.
But he also stressed this was just the “first phase” of the process, and that if more people needed to leave Afghanistan after 31 August, the deadline set by the US for the end of the mission at Kabul airport, then the Taliban would be expected to offer them “safe passage”.
Johnson said the evacuation process overseen by the British military over the last 10 days had been an “incredible achievement”. Approximately 15,000 people (mostly Afghans, but also Britons, and some other westerners), had been airlifted out, he said.
“There’s been nothing like it in terms of speed and scale in our lifetime. That’s equivalent to a town the size of Beaconsfield, or Prestwick, or Abergavenny, or Armagh,” he said.
He said the Afghans coming to the UK were people who helped the British military effort in the country and “that we’ve got the overwhelming majority of those to whom we owe that debt out of Afghanistan”.
Now the government had to find homes for these people and “find ways of integrating those people into this country”, he said.
“The real job now is to make sure they have the housing, they have the skills, they have the opportunities to integrate into our society. Our labour market … it currently offers many opportunities, but we must make sure that they’re ready, and that’s another whole job.”
Johnson also said that this was not the end of the process, and that in future he hoped other Afghans would be able to leave.
“We hope to continue to be able to say to people, well, you can, you can come out,” he said.
“One of the key things that we’re saying to the Taliban is, to engage with the west, to unlock [development spending] safe passage for those who want to come out is obviously the number one condition.”
Johnson also denied being personally involved in government decisions relating to the attempt by Paul Farthing to get animals from his rescue home airlifted out of Kabul.
