Afghans evacuation flights from Germany to USA resume Saturday

Evacuation flights for several thousand Afghans from the US base in Ramstein, Germany, to the United States are to resume on Saturday, reported dpa.

The resumption of flights was announced by the management of the world's largest US air base outside the US on Thursday, more than two months after the end of the airlift from Kabul.

The air base and a base in the emirate of Qatar are the main hubs for the onward travel of Afghans flown out of Afghanistan by the US military after the Taliban took power.

The flights had been interrupted at the request of the US health authorities because a few evacuees who had arrived in the United States had been diagnosed with measles, meaning about 8,800 Afghan people in need of protection had been vaccinated against the disease in Germany.

Work is currently under way to determine the schedule for transporting the remaining evacuees to the United States, Ramstein said: "It is expected that about 1,000 Afghans will leave each day over the next few days."

The final date on which the last evacuees will depart has reportedly not yet been set.

A spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of the Interior had said in Berlin on Monday that 9,139 people from Afghanistan were currently still being housed at the US base in Ramstein and at a US army facility in Kaiserslautern.