Switzerland's Nationals Evacuated From Kabul: Foreign Minister

Three Swiss nationals have been successfully evacuated from the fallen Afghan capital Kabul and efforts are under way to extract their Afghan colleagues, Switzerland's foreign minister said Monday.

"We were able to get our three employees from the SDC (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation) office in Kabul out of the country with the help of our partners," Ignazio Cassis said in a tweet.

"They are on their way to Switzerland."

The wealthy Alpine nation has no embassy in Afghanistan, but the foreign ministry's international development arm, the SDC, has long been present in Kabul.

Just days before the Afghan capital fell to the Taliban, Bern announced Friday it would repatriate the three remaining Swiss SDC employees, and said some 40 local employees of the agency and their families were being offered a humanitarian visa to come to Switzerland.

"We are working flat out to evacuate the local staff under the most difficult circumstances," Cassis tweeted Monday.

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