Pen Farthing says that he’ll be forced to leave Afghanistan without 25 Afghan staff and their families after they told him to flee ‘with as many cats and dogs’ as possible
The Daily Mail: An animal charity boss stuck in Afghanistan with 200 dogs and cats said his ‘mission’ to get them and his 25 staff and their families out of the country has been unsuccessful and he is now likely to have to leave the country on his own.
Pen Farthing, who founded the Nowzad animal shelter in Kabul, has been engaged in a desperate attempt to board an RAF evacuation flight in recent days.
Today, he had been waiting outside the city’s airport with his animals and staff after making it through a terrifying Taliban checkpoint at which a fighter accidentally fired his gun.
His group also narrowly avoided the airport suicide bomb blasts which rocked the area today, killing 12 US serviceman and up to 90 Afghans.
But he has now revealed in an interview with the BBC that he has been forced to give up on his attempt to get his animals and staff out of the country due to a decision by US President Joe Biden to change the rules on who is allowed into the airfield.
He said that even though his staff had been ‘given approval’ by the British Government to board a flight, ‘the Taliban would not accept their paperwork’ because they had been told to only allow people through who had a ‘physical passport with a visa in it’.
He said his staff have now told him it is ‘time to go’ over fears for his safety, but added that he will be unable to take any of his animals due to the new rules.
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