Afghanistan: 82,000 evacuated amid security worries

Evacuees from Afghanistan arrive in Spain

More than 82,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan's capital city, Kabul, since the Taliban took over the country by force.

Last week, the extreme religious and political group seized control of Kabul, causing panic across the country.

This has led to many people wanting to leave Afghanistan as quickly as possible.

The UK has flown 11,500 people from Kabul's airport to safety in the last 12 days, and they hope to fly out many more in the next few days.

But threats to the airport's safety might make this more difficult.

People wait outside the airport hoping to get a flight out of Afghanistan

Evacuation deadline

Thousands of people are still waiting inside and outside Kabul's airport, hoping to be able to get a flight out of the country.

Countries are hoping to be able to evacuate as many people as they can before Tuesday 31 August.

The reason is that soldiers from the United States are planning to exit Afghanistan by this time.

And if these soldiers are not there, it will make flying people out of the country a lot harder.

US troops have been helping people evacuate

At the moment, Kabul airport has 6,800 soldiers from the United States and the United Kingdom protecting it and helping with the evacuation process.

The UK's Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, said: "We will use every last remaining hour and day to get everyone we can back..."

Turkey also has hundreds of soldiers helping at the airport, at the request of the Taliban.

But the Taliban want all foreign troops to leave the country by the end of August.

A Taliban spokesperson announced on Wednesday that people will still be able to leave the country after 31 August if they have the correct documents.

All soldiers from the United States will leave Afghanistan by 31 August

Security concerns at the airport

But some countries are worried that Kabul's airport is not a safe place to be at the moment.

Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom have sent warnings to their citizens asking them to leave the airport and wait to be contacted in other places due to fears of terror attacks.

The reduced safety of Kabul's airport will also make evacuating people from Afghanistan more difficult.