British student evacuated from Afghanistan after ‘danger holiday’
A 21 year-old British student who travelled to Afghanistan on holiday has said he has now been evacuated.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Miles Routledge said he had landed in Dubai after previously staying at a United Nations safe house in Kabul.
He posted a video appearing to be inside a military aircraft and thanked “the brilliant people at the British army.”
The University of Loughborough student journeyed to the country last week on a ‘danger holiday’ despite the Taliban gaining power.
Before boarding his flight, Routledge posted that he had been evacuated with “100 or so other civilians”.
“The Taliban let us go through the airport and we met many of them, very long transition period but everyone was smiling and waving at one another, some took selfies with them,” he said.
The student said he “slept on a dirt/gravel road” before moving to a safe house where everyone was “hydrated, happy and ready for a few hours of sleep.”
Routledge also posted to the streaming platform Twitch and message board 4chan, where he shared fears about dying.
He booked seven nights travelling around the country back in May and decided to embark on his holiday last week despite the Taliban insurgency after not being able to get a refund.
Defence secretary Ben Wallace said the military part of Kabul’s international airport is open and secure, meaning Britons can be evacuated.
Commercial flights from the airport have been largely suspended as hundreds of Afghans try to flee the country.