21-year-old British student on an adventure trip to Afghanistan, evacuated

The British student who went to Afghanistan on a holiday before the Taliban coup has safely been evacuated by the British authorities. Miles Routledge, who has been posting social media updates on his experience in the country after the Taliban took over, told BBC that he is exhausted but relieved. The student is currently in Dubai after the evacuation.

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On Tuesday, the 21-year-old told his social media followers that he had got a place on a list for people to be evacuated from Kabul, and hours later put up a video of himself and dozens of others landing in what he described as a British Army plane.

While Routledge’s social media accounts have since been wiped clean and all posts have been deleted. Some screenshots and saved footage are being shared on Twitter. Here’s the video shared by one of the social media users.

The Physics student was constantly posting updates about his stay in the country and was in touch with media as well. On Monday Routledge told the PA news agency that he and other civilians, including some other British citizens, had been given refuge in a Nato-controlled building in Kabul.

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Routledge, a native of Birmingham, reached Afghanistan on Friday, when the Taliban had already captured Kandahar and Lashkar Gah and were advancing towards Kabul. Since then, he had been constantly sharing about his whereabouts along with pictures of him posing with weapons, tankers etc.

 However, the British boy is being criticised by a section of social media users for choosing a holiday as sensitive as Afghanistan. He earlier revealed in his internet interactions that he chose the war-torn country because he enjoyed “dark” and “extreme” tourism.

Some users are now questioning why Routledge was given priority in evacuation while many suggest that the authorities shouldn’t have been evacuated him. See some reactions here.

“Why was he prioritized for evacuation? He should have been at the back of the line behind British citizens there serving the country and the Afghans who helped them. They all performed a useful service which he did not,” asked a user.