Whistleblower: U.K. botched Afghanistan evacuation

Raphael Marshall, a former U.K. Foreign Office employee, testified before a committee in the British Parliament on Tuesday, accusing the office of ignoring pleas for help and mismanaging resources. Marshall said he was sometimes the only person in the office monitoring an inbox flooded with thousands of emails from desperate Afghans in late August as British and U.S. troops left Afghanistan and the Taliban took over. Marshall claims most of these emails were left unanswered, and only 5 percent of up to 150,000 Afghan nationals who applied were able to flee.

What else went wrong? Marshall claimed that Prime Minister Boris Johnson instructed British officials to evacuate nearly 200 dogs and cats from a Kabul animal shelter. He said this wasted resources and left Afghan nationals in danger. Johnson’s spokesperson called the claim “entirely untrue.” Former Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who was demoted to justice secretary after the crisis, said the reports ignore how complex and quick the Taliban takeover was. He praised Britain’s speedy airlift of 15,000 people, 5,000 of whom were British citizens, in two weeks.

Dig deeper: Read Emily Belz’s report in WORLD Magazine about dwindling evacuation efforts in Afghanistan.