Woman evacuated from Afghanistan delivers baby girl on board US military plane

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A woman evacuated from Afghanistan amidst the chaos in the country following the Taliban takeover has given birth to a baby girl on board a US military plane.</p>
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The US Air Force said the Afghan woman went into labour and began having complications on board the military plane flying to Ramstein Air Base in Germany from a staging base in the Middle East.</p>
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The aircraft commander decided to descend in altitude to increase air pressure in the aircraft which helped to stabilise her condition and save her life.</p>
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Medical personnel boarded the plane after it landed and delivered the baby in the C-17 aircraft's cargo hold.</p>
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Both baby and mother are said to be in good condition at a nearby medical facility.</p>
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US forces numbering around 5,800 troops are currently in control of Kabul airport for the evacuation of foreign citizens and at-risk Afghans. About 17,000 people have so far been airlifted from the site by the US military, the White House said on Saturday.</p>
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US President Joe Biden has set a deadline of 31 August for the withdrawal of all US troops from the country. However, several nations are seeking an extension to this deadline to help safely evacuate their citizens and Afghans who served with Western agencies and now face the risk of reprisals from the Taliban.</p>
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Asked by a reporter whether the United States would extend an Aug. 31 deadline for evacuations, Biden replied: "Our hope is we will not have to extend but there are going to be discussions I suspect on how far along we are in the process."</p>
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"They want to evacuate 60,000 people between now and the end of this month," EU foreign policy head Josep Borrell told AFP news agency on Saturday. "It's mathematically impossible."</p>
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As part of a new plan to expedite the evacuations, the US administration has also asked six commercial airlines including United Airlines and American Airlines to help bring home people from temporary locations in the Middle-east countries to where they have been evacuated from Afghanistan in US military planes.</p>
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This reflects how dire the situation is as thousands of people are still stuck in Afghanistan waiting to fly out. The last time the US forces had sought help from commercial airlines was during the Iraq War in 2003.</p>