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The
Department of Homeland Security had denied U.S. landing rights
for a charter plane carrying more than 100 evacuees, said
organisers of that earlier flight -- one of several that emerged
from ad hoc networks that formed to bolster last month's chaotic
evacuation operation from Afghanistan.
But the State Department said on Wednesday that more than 100
U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents evacuated to Abu
Dhabi from Afghanistan aboard the charter flight were expected
to fly on to the United States on Thursday.
The State Department had said that U.S. officials were working
to verify the accuracy of the list of passengers that had been
evacuated to the UAE capital Abu Dhabi.
"The processing of those passengers has been completed and they
have already departed for the United States on a commercial
aircraft (Etihad) this morning," the UAE foreign ministry said
in an emailed response to Reuters.
It did not say whether all the passengers had flown out.
Bryan Stern, a founder of nonprofit group Project Dynamo that
chartered the flight, had said 28 U.S. citizens, 83 green card
holders and six people with U.S. Special Immigration Visas
granted to Afghans who worked for the U.S. government during the
20-year war in Afghanistan were aboard the Kam Air flight from
Kabul to Abu Dhabi.
President Joe Biden's administration has said its top priority
is repatriating Americans and green card holders who were unable
to leave Afghanistan in the U.S. evacuation operation last
month.
(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell; Writing by Ghaida Ghantous;
Editing by Alison Williams, William Maclean)
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