Ramstein is one of the largest U.S. air bases outside of America and has now become a temporary transit point for evacuees in the United States.
The United States is using “one of the largest and most difficult air bridges in history,” U.S. President Joe Biden said Friday, acknowledging that despite the presence of thousands of U.S. troops at the airport of Kabul, the situation remains dangerous.
The U.S. military expects to evacuate between 5,000 and 9,000 people a day, but has so far failed to meet that goal. There were delays for hours at the airport on Friday as destinations receiving Afghans recovered.
Other countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy and Australia, have also evacuated hundreds of Afghans and nationals from the country.
At Ramstein Air Base, the evacuees will remain for approximately 48 to 72 hours, Brig. General Josh Olson told CNN on Saturday, adding that under the U.S. agreement with Germany, there would be no more than ten days left.
Ten minutes from the landing of the C-17 Globemaster massif in Ramstein on Saturday afternoon, tired but happy passengers disembarked on buses heading to the base’s reception center. An imam is the first person to greet them as he gets off the bus and walks away from the chaos and violence of Kabul airport.
Most carry a backpack. There are Afghan men in traditional dresses, women in loose handkerchiefs trying to put rope on young children. A woman balances a huge bundle of cloth on her head as she goes through security.
Quick safety checks of bags, water and snacks are performed and the temperature of Covid-19 is checked.
But there are also clues about the terror they left: a man and a woman with their ankles bandaged, as if they were twisted. A small child with his arm in a sling.
Provisional home
There is a capacity for 5,000 people at Ramstein Air Base. But with flights arriving every 90 minutes, it fills up quickly and Olson said the team is building more facilities in a kind of tent city that will house 2,500 more people evacuated.
The houses are separated by gender: women and children stay in the tents inside the hangar, the men in the tents outside, with a courtyard to gather the families.
Hand-changing mosques include separate entrances for men and women.
Inside the tents, yellow power cords allow evacuees to charge their phones, with some of the newcomers grouped around these power outlets and checking their cell phones.
Elsewhere, a wall of folding military cribs is distributed and dozens of portable toilets have been lined up.
Among those evacuated is 31-year-old Hammed Kamal. Kamal is a U.S. citizen from Richmond, Virginia, who returned to Kabul to work as a translator and get married.
Kamal’s wedding was a week ago, on August 14th. When the Taliban entered the city, he took his new wife and family to the airport. But there was such chaos that it parted ways. In the end, he could only pull his father and older sister out the doors, he told CNN.
Kamal’s wife and the rest of the family are trapped in Kabul. The only time he spoke to them since they separated was in a two-minute conversation Saturday morning when he landed on Ramstein. They are safe, but scared, he said.
Both Kamal and his brother worked as translators and his father was a colonel in the Afghan army. They fear the Taliban will target them. And while he’s grateful for the evacuation effort, he says he’s moving too slowly.
Back in Kabul, there is still deep uncertainty for thousands who are still waiting to catch a flight like theirs.
Volatile situation at Kabul airport
Taliban checkpoints and chaos at the airport gates have prevented many thousands from entering the facility, let alone on planes, subjecting them to the harsh conditions and violence of the Taliban.
Meanwhile, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, co-founder of the Taliban movement, has arrived in Kabul from Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, according to a Taliban tweet on Saturday. Baradar led the negotiations in Doha on behalf of the Taliban and arrived in Afghanistan last week for the first time in 20 years.
On Saturday, the U.S. embassy in Kabul issued a security alert stating that U.S. citizens should not go to Hamid Karzai International Airport unless instructed to do so by the U.S. government.
The number of people at the airport is now 14,000, a source familiar with the situation said on Saturday. The numbers given by base officials are often difficult to reconcile and change frequently.
The source said the flights were going back to Qatar, Europe, possibly Hungary, and that Kuwait had agreed to accept special immigrant visa applicants, as long as they were en route to the United States.
Last day, the U.S. military evacuated approximately 3,800 people in six C-17s and 32 charter planes from Kabul airport, General Hank Taylor, deputy director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Saturday. Regionals.
Since the end of July, 22,000 people have been evacuated – 17,000 have been evacuated last week since August 14. Of those 17,000, 2,500 are U.S. citizens, Taylor said.
C-17 military aircraft are now “moving between Qatar and Germany,” Taylor added.
Some, like those arriving in Ramstein, have been lucky enough to catch one of these planes.