Government ‘regrets’ confusion over decision to evacuate animal welfare charity staff from Afghanistan

The Foreign Office has acknowledged that an “error” in internal communication left some staff believing the prime minister has made the decision to call Nowzad’s staff forward for evacuation.

Downing Street has previously denied Boris Johnson played any role in prioritizing their removal.

The Nowzad charity was set up by former Royal Marine Paul “Pen” Farthing, who launched a high-profile campaign to get his staff and animals out of Kabul as the Taliban swept across Afghanistan last year.

In a damning report, the Conservative-led Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) has said the charity’s workers were called for evacuation “at the last minute” despite not meeting the Foreign Office’s prioritization criteria “after a mysterious intervention from elsewhere in government”.

In the end, the workers fled Afghanistan to Pakistan rather than on a plane from Kabul.

The charity’s animals were able to leave on a charter flight with Mr. Farthing, which the MPs said absorbed “significant” resources during the chaotic period.

Addressing the FAC report, in which it was accused of giving “intentionally evasive, and often deliberately misleading” responses to the committee’s investigations, the Foreign Office acknowledged that “more care should have been taken” within the department in how the decision was communicated to staff.

“The government regrets that it took as long as it did to establish what the decision-making process had been in this case, and how the decision was communicated internally to FCDO (Foreign Office) staff,” it said.

The department added: “It agrees that, in this particular case, more care should have been taken within the FCDO in how the decision was communicated to staff.

“It acknowledges again that an error in the way the decision was communicated internally left some FCDO staff believing that the prime minister had made the decision.”

Source: news.sky.com