A former British Royal Marine and founder of a sanctuary for stray animals in Afghanistan is desperately trying to fly out over 100 animals and dozens of workers before next week’s evacuation deadline, a report said.
Paul “Pen” Farthing, 57, said supporters of his organization, Nowzad, have raised enough money to pay for a cargo plane out of Kabul — but British officials said there are “thousands and thousands” of people who need to be prioritized first.
All of the animals — 94 dogs and 79 cats — have been moved the charity’s three locations in the war-torn country to its headquarters in Kabul, The Sun reported.
Farthing, who is also still in Afghanistan, fears he will have to euthanize the animals if he can’t get them out by Aug. 31 — the current deadline for foreign forces to leave the Taliban-controlled country.
He also wants to use the plane to evacuate 68 Afghan refugees, including workers, who are at his shelter, the report said.
“We want to bring in an aircraft with 250 seats and we need only 69 of them,” Farthing told the publication.
“We are paying for it. It costs the taxpayer nothing and could be a bit of good news,” he said.
British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace sounded less optimistic about the plan.
“Thousands and thousands of people, some of whom are under really, really direct threat, very dangerous threat because of what they did during the last 20 years, and they have a right to get on a plane as much as anyone else,” Wallace said, according to BBC.
“So therefore our priority is getting those people processed and I simply can’t push those people out of the way to allow through some of those other cases,” the defense secretary said.