Tuesday, October 5th, 2021
First vaccinate, then travel on
Thousands of Afghans are waiting in Ramstein
Tens of thousands of people will be flying out of Kabul by the US armed forces at the end of August. For many Afghan citizens, the trip to Germany has come to an end for the time being. Over 9,000 evacuees are still stuck on the army bases. There are medical reasons for this.
More than two months after the end of the Kabul airlift, more than 9,000 Afghans are still on US Army bases in Germany. A spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior said 9139 people from Afghanistan are currently staying at the US base in Ramstein and in a US Army facility in Kaiserslautern. According to information from the Foreign Office, there are no Afghans among them who have been accepted into Germany. They were supposed to be flown to the USA, but are currently stuck on the US bases.
Onward flights to the United States were suspended in September after a few cases of measles were found in evacuees who had arrived in the United States. Those in need of protection at the base in Ramstein, Palatinate and in the Rhine Ordnance Barracks, a US barracks in neighboring Kaiserslautern, were vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox shortly afterwards.
Ramstein and a base in the emirate of Qatar are the most important hubs for the onward journey of Afghans who were flown out by the US military after the Taliban came to power. According to reports, the flights from Ramstein to the USA are to be resumed next Friday.
The US Department of Homeland Security said it had vaccinated tens of thousands of Afghans against measles, mumps and rubella in military facilities in the US. People would also be vaccinated at bases in Europe and the Middle East. The flights from there would resume this week, it said.