Relief for Afghan pilots flown out of Tajikistan by US
ABC News
U.S. airlifts out 160 Afghan Air Force pilots, trapped for months in Tajikistan
Around 150 former Afghan Air Force pilots and personnel, who were trapped in Tajikistan for months after fleeing Afghanistan, have been airlifted by the United States out of the country to the United Arab Emirates.
The pilots had spent nearly three months in detention in Tajikistan after they used their military aircraft to fly to Afghanistan’s northern neighbor as the Taliban seized Kabul in August. But some of the pilots found themselves in a frightening limbo, detained in a hotel complex by Tajikistan's authorities, where they said they spent weeks held largely incommunicado and unsure if they might be sent back to the Taliban.
The pilots who spoke with ABC News also said they were poorly fed and were often without electricity in detention. Among them was a female pilot nine months pregnant, they said.
The pilots were taken to the airport in Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe by staff from the U.S. embassy last Tuesday and put on a charter flight to Dubai, according to the pilots and Department of Defense. There, the evacuees were placed in quarantine in a hotel and are now beginning the process of being assessed for resettlement to the U.S. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday that the pilots were evacuated as part of a group of approximately 191 Afghans.
