UK govt slammed over Afghan exit as hundreds left behind

London: The UK government on Sunday faced a torrent of criticism after its hurried withdrawal from Afghanistan ended, leaving hundreds eligible for relocation behind.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailed a mission "unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes" after the UK airlifted over 15,000 people in the last two weeks. But current and former officials slammed government failings, suggesting many more Afghans could have been rescued.

The Observer leftwing broadsheet cited a whistleblower as saying thousands of emails from MPs and charities to the foreign ministry highlighting specific Afghans at risk from the Taliban takeover went unopened.

Foreign Minister Dominic Raab has already been strongly criticised for not immediately ending a beach holiday when the Taliban took control. The Observer said it saw evidence that an official email account set up by the Foreign Office to receive such pleas regularly had 5,000 unopened emails last week. It said these included messages from ministers’ offices and the leader of the opposition Labour party, Keir Starmer. "They cannot possibly know (how many people have been left behind) because they haven’t even read the emails," the whistleblower was quoted as saying. The Foreign Office responded that its crisis team worked 24/7 "to triage incoming emails and calls".