The United States may have evacuated more than 120,000 people from Afghanistan but left behind nearly 100 dogs back in Kabul, according to reports from an animal rights organisation.

Reports from PETA suggest that dozens of dogs, which included those working with the United States forces and some rescued from streets of Afghanistan were abandoned as the last flight from Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport took off on Monday.

The abandoned animals also included rescued cats, according to the report from People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

The reports are based on pictures from Afghanistan’s national capital Kabul which show multiple dog carriers in an aircraft hanger. Dogs can be seen inside the carriers. However, the report from PETA also clears that verification of the picture is still underway.

The report from the animal rights organisation suggested that “dozens of US military working dogs, numerous animal companions belonging to evacuated Americans, and more than 100 dogs previously rescued from the streets of Afghanistan along with an unknown number of rescued cats and the humans caring for these animals were left behind in Afghanistan.”

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The PETA report says that attempts to arrange a flight for the abandoned animals in Afghanistan’s Kabul have been restricted by “red tape and catastrophes”. 

It further explains that out of the dozens of abandoned animals in Kabul, the dogs, including a pug belonging to an employee at the American Embassy, might be the most vulnerable as they may have been “let loose to fend for themselves on and around airport grounds”.

Meanwhile, the Kabul Small Animal Rescue, a Kabul-based animal rescue, attempted to get dozens of dogs and cats out of Afghanistan before American troops left the country but they weren’t allowed on military aircraft, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals International wrote in a press release. 

“Most of the KSAR dogs had to be released into the airport on August 30 as the airport was evacuated — turning once rescued shelter dogs into homeless strays. They were not given access to the flight we had secured to transport them out of the country,” SPCAI said in the release.