Samuel Case, FISM News

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The state department said on Wednesday that it’s vetting and verifying the identities of over 100 U.S. citizens and Afghan green card holders who escaped Afghanistan on a non-profit jet. The flight was chartered by Bryan Stern with the Human First Coalition. Stern said the jet has 28 U.S. citizens, 83 green card holders, and six people with U.S. Special Immigration Visas on board.

Stern is the founder of the nonprofit Project Dynamo: an organization dedicated to saving “Americans and Afghans applying for Special Immigrant Visa status,” through “privately run civilian” airlifts.

Project Dynamo is named in reference to the Allied forces’ evacuation of Dunkirk during World War II which was made with the help of thousands of civilian watercrafts.  The veteran led organization has been gathering evacuees in provinces across Afghanistan and busing or airlifting them to safety.  The project, which is paid for entirely by the directors and any donations received, mobilized to countries surrounding Afghanistan on August 23, 2021 and has been performing independent and cooperative civilian evacuations since then.

The Flight was denied entry to the United States and forced to land in the United Arab Emirates so the vetting process could take place. “The processing of those passengers has been completed and they have already departed for the United States on a commercial aircraft (Etihad) this morning,” the UAE Foreign Minister said Thursday. 

The State Department said on Wednesday it had expected the jet “to continue onward travel tomorrow morning.”