A family with three children, and three men, managed to get inside the airport during the night from 23 to 24 August, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday morning. On Monday evening it had said that one person destined for Luxembourg had reached Kabul international airport safely. This means that all Luxembourg nationals and residents due to be evacuated are accounted for.

Bausch (déi Gréng) later on Tuesday said all nine people have in the meantime boarded flights and departed from the Afghan capital. “For the moment, we don’t know via which airport they will be repatriated to return to Brussels or Luxembourg,” he told Delano’s sister publication .

Luxembourg on 18 August had sent the army’s A400m aircraft to Islamabad as part of a joint mission with Belgium to rescue EU citizens and residents, embassy staff and other workers. The Taliban had swept across Afghanistan in ten days, capturing regional capitals and arriving at the gates of Kabul on 15 August.

Nine people with Luxembourg citizenship or living in the country found themselves trapped in the chaos. The A400M departed without them in the direction of Melsbroek in Belgium, where the aircraft is normally stationed. On board were 93 EU citizens and residents. The government did not indicate if or when the plane would make another journey to Pakistan. It had been left there as smaller Belgian aircraft carried people from Kabul to Islamabad.

The grand duchy will be sending representatives of the army and the foreign ministry to Kabul to strengthen rescue efforts and support its partners on site. In Tuesday’s statement, the foreign ministry thanked Belgium and the Netherlands for their assistance in helping the Luxembourg evacuees get inside the airport.

“Without this international cooperation, we would never have managed to get all these people out,” Bausch said. 

The defence minister is set to host a joint press conference with foreign minister Jean Asselborn (LSAP) on Wednesday afternoon.

Western countries have been unable to provide safe passage for people trying to get to the airport. A firefight at the airport broke out on Monday evening when an unknown person fired at Afghan security forces. One person died and several were wounded.

The violence came after at least seven people, including a 2-year-old child, died in a stampede outside the airport on Sunday. Thousands of people desperate to flee the country have gathered outside the airport, making it nearly impossible for those on evacuee lists to pass the gates.

The US is considering extending the withdrawal deadline to allow more time for rescue missions past 31 August, but a Taliban spokesman warned of “consequences” in an interview with Sky News if foreign soldiers remain past the agreed date.

“Currently, everything suggests that the departures will stop on 31 August, which is why we are so relieved to have evacuated these people from Luxembourg out of Afghanistan. With the situation changing from hour to hour, it's hard to predict what will happen,” Bausch said. 

Updated on 24 August at 5:30pm to add comments by François Bausch and indicate that evacuees have left Kabul.