Washington | Consumed with trying to help dozens of Afghans escape their country as US troops prepared to withdraw, aides to Republican congressman Michael Waltz shifted their work schedules, coming in after midnight so they could talk evacuees through Taliban checkpoints.

Democrat congresswoman Elissa Slotkin and her staff began what she called “a tense, 10-day odyssey” involving two nations’ militaries and several nongovernmental organisations, to help evacuate 114 Afghans from Kabul.