100 Afghans touch down in Adelaide after boarding emergency flight from Kabul

An evacuation flight carrying 100 Afghan refugees landed at Adelaide Airport early this morning with four buses taking people to medi-hotel quarantine.

An Afghan rescue flight carrying 100 refugees touched down in Adelaide on Wednesday morning.

An evacuation flight carrying 100 Afghan refugees landed at Adelaide Airport about 4am with four buses taking people to Hindley St to undertake 14-day quarantine at the Hotel Grand Chancellor.

The passengers, all of which fled Kabul following the city’s fall to the Taliban on August 15, are understood to hold humanitarian visas.

Following the flight’s 4am arrival passengers were escorted by Australian Defence Force members to hotel quarantine.

BREAKING: A rescue flight from Afghanistan has touched down at Adelaide Airport just a short time ago. On board are 100 Afghans, who we understand have been granted humanitarian visas after Kabul fell to the Taliban. They’ll now enter 14 days quarantine @[e-mail]/hs6oJ7yUy5

— Ella Duffy (@ellakduffy) August 24, 2021

Defence Minister Peter Dutton moved to temper expectations Australian Defence Force personnel would be able to continue rescuing citizens and Afghan nationals from the capital beyond the August 31 deadline for the US withdrawal.

“We are in, obviously, the back end of this campaign now and the situation does continue to deteriorate over the coming hours and in the next couple of days,” he said.

Mr Dutton said the ADF was working in “perilous circumstances” in Kabul, where there were “credible threats” of terrorist attacks.

Australia evacuated a further 650 people from Kabul overnight on Monday, in what was the “biggest night” of the mission since it began.

Afghan refugees, including this man and child (with their faces blurred to protect their identities), arrived in Adelaide on Wednesday morning. They will now enter 14 days quarantine at the Grand Chancellor Hotel. Picture: Trudie Glynn-Roe

Families begin to board a US Air Force Boeing C-17 Globemaster III during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport on Monday, August 23, 2021. Picture: AFP/Samuel Ruiz

Refugees make their way to emergency evacuation flights. Picture: AFP/Samuel Ruiz

Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed Australian and New Zealand citizens, as well as Afghan nationals with visas, were brought out of the capital city on five flights.

“We’ve uplifted a lot of Kiwis,” Mr Morrison said. “They were with us last night, uplifting Aussies, and so we thank them for that.”

Mr Morrison said Australia had now evacuated more than 1700 people in total.

He said while the August 31 deadline remained to withdraw from Afghanistan, he was not taking any chances.

“I’ve made no assumptions about the Taliban,” he said. “We know their form. We’ve been going like we won’t be able to get another flight in the next day. So, we’ve been trying to make every flight as successful as possible.”

Mr Morrison said on Tuesday that Australia would keep flying into Kabul for “as long as we can.”