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- American University of Afghanistan students, relatives, and staff were left behind, per The NYT.
- They reportedly met at a safe house to get to the airport, but were told they couldn't be rescued.
- They were also told their names were given to the Taliban, the report said.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Hundreds of students, their relatives, and staff at the American University of Afghanistan were told that they would not be evacuated, and that their names had been given to the Taliban, The New York Times reported.
The students told The Times that the group met at a safe house on Sunday and then boarded buses to try and get evacuated on US military flights.
But the university emailed them on Sunday afternoon to say they would not be flown out, after they spent seven hours driving around Kabul hoping to be let into the airport, the report said.
"I regret to inform you that the high command at HKIA [Hamid Karzai International Airport] in the airport has announced there will be no more rescue flights," the email said, according to The Times. It also asked the students and relatives to go home.
The group also learned that their names had been given to the Taliban, The Times reported, though Ian Bickford, the university's president, had said the university only gave their names to the US military.
"They told us: We have given your names to the Taliban," one student told The Times. "We are all terrified. There is no evacuation, there is no getting out."
Last week Politico reported that US officials had given the Taliban a list of Afghans seeking to flee the country so that they could access the airport. One official warned that it could be used as a "kill list."
Bickford told The Times last week that he was working with the US so that around 1,200 students could be evacuated, but that those efforts were complicated by the attack at Kabul's airport.
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