Nowzad staff escape Afghanistan to the British High Commission in Islamabad, Pakistan

The Nowzad staff have successfully escaped Afghanistan and are now at the British High Commission in Pakistan from where they will be travelling to the UK in due course. Animal advocates the world over will be delighted to hear the news.

Mr Farthing, who founded the Nowzad organisation managed, as you may recall, to escape with almost 200 cats and dogs in a privately funded jet among a lot of controversy. However, he did remarkable work and showed great fortitude in getting the animals out with himself.

Nowzad staff escape Afghanistan to the British High Commission in Islamabad, Pakistan. Note: this is a screenshot and not an embedded tweet.

Nowzad staff escape Afghanistan to the British High Commission in Islamabad, Pakistan. Screenshot of tweet.

Mr Farthing was forced to leave his staff behind because of the great difficulty of evacuation from Kabul airport and because of Taliban barriers that were constantly being put up together with President Biden's change in policy. And now we can report that the Nowzad staff are out of Afghanistan. We are not told how they got there but it must have been overland to the border with Pakistan. We do know that the former Royal Marine, Pen Farthing, is "so bloody happy" that his staff made it out of the country.

Mr Farthing said: "This is bloody mind-blowing. It has still not really sunk in". And the Foreign Secretary Dominic Rab also tweeted that he was pleased that the group had crossed the border into Pakistan and were being assisted by the diplomatic service and that "we look forward to welcoming them to the UK in the coming days".

Mr Farthing can now declare his "Operation Ark" a success although it was carried out in two phases. Nowzad's primary purpose as an animal rescue centre in Kabul was to reunite military personnel with mainly dogs that they had rescued, while being deployed in Afghanistan, on their return to America or other country from which they had been deployed.

Of course, Kabul is now without an animal rescue center of great quality. The lives of the animals of Afghanistan will be worse as a result.

Update October 11, 2021: is now reported that his staff have just arrived in the UK. They were flown from Islamabad, Pakistan. Amongst them are I believe a couple of veterinarians and they will be checked out and they can then work as veterinarians in the UK. The other staff will also be able to find new jobs I believe in veterinary clinics in the UK. It's great news and they can now build new lives in a relatively safe country.