Defense Minister Tibor Benkő has confirmed that the Hungarian army has evacuated altogether 540 people from Afghanistan, including all Hungarian citizens known to be in the country.
According to MTI, the minister said that besides Hungarian citizens, the Hungarian forces have also airlifted US, Austrian and Afghan citizens in a seven-day operation that began on August 19. Answering a question, the minister confirmed that the evacuation operation had been concluded. All Hungarians requesting assistance were brought back to Hungary, as were all Afghan citizens who had cooperated with the Hungarian armed forces over its 18-year deployment and requested evacuation “on time”, Benkő said.
The minister added that some 87 percent of “Afghans with ties to Hungary” were evacuated, including 57 families and 180 children. The government ordered the evacuation of Hungarian citizens on August 17, and the army’s resources were scrambled by the afternoon of the next day. The operation started early on August 19, he added. The armed forces used two Airbus A319s to fly the evacuees from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan, in 14 flight rounds during the operation’s seven days. They then transferred to passenger planes of Wizz Air and the Uzbek airline company which brought them to Hungary.