UK Rescued Three Families Whose Contacts Were Left At Kabul Embassy

Britain’s Foreign Office said it rescued three Afghan families whose contact details had been in documents left behind at its embassy in Kabul and seized by the Taliban.

The documents identifying seven Afghans were found by reporters of The Times on Tuesday as Taliban fighters patrolled the embassy, the newspaper said. The Times said it handed over the details of three Afghan staff and their eight family members to the Foreign Office.

British Foreign Office staff left documents with contact details of Afghans working for them scattered on the ground at the embassy compound in Kabul, the newspaper reported.

“Crucially we have now been able to get these three families to safety”, a Foreign Office spokesperson told Reuters late on Thursday.

“The drawdown of our Embassy was done at pace as the situation in Kabul deteriorated. Every effort was made to destroy sensitive material”, the spokesperson said.

The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in mid-August from a U.S.-backed government, sending thousands fleeing and potentially heralding a return to the militants’ austere and autocratic rule of two decades ago.

The Times reported that such was the British surprise at the speed of the capture of Kabul that the embassy’s evacuation protocols, which included destruction of all data that could compromise Afghan staff, had broken down.

The documents included the name and address of a leading member of the embassy staff in Kabul, other staff members and their contact details and the CVs and addresses of applicants for jobs as interpreters, the newspaper said.

Calls made by The Times to numbers on the abandoned documents revealed that some of those listed had been evacuated to the UK in the past few days.

The fate of at least two job applicants for positions as interpreters remains unknown, according to the newspaper.

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