– These are children who have stayed for some time at the field hospital in Kabul. In a very extreme situation, we chose to evacuate for the sake of the children, said Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide (H) in a briefing on the Afghanistan situation on Saturday.
Eriksen Søreide will not go into what kind of extreme situation we are talking about, nor how many children have been evacuated to Norway.
Earlier Saturday, it became known that a Norwegian plane with evacuees landed in Norway at dawn.
– The children are taken care of by the child welfare service and Bufetat. We do what we can to follow up on their interests, and we do not provide any further information due to privacy concerns, says Eriksen Søreide.
The flights from Kabul with Norwegian planes have Norwegian citizens, citizens of other countries and locally employed Afghans on board, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has previously stated. Among those who were also on board was, among others, country director Terje Watterdal in the Afghanistan Committee.
Eriksen Søreide further says that other evacuated Afghans will be taken care of at the national reception center before they are settled in municipalities.
– These are quota refugees, so they are followed up in line with what is usual, she says.
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