British Ex-Marine Escaped Afghanistan With 200 Animals, But Left Afghan Staff Behind

Nearly 200 dogs and cats in Afghanistan were evacuated to London along with the British founder of the animals’ shelter, but the facility’s staff failed to leave the country.

Flying on a privately-funded charter plane, Paul “Pen” Farthing, the shelter’s founder and a former British Royal Marine, arrived in Heathrow Airport on Sunday morning with as many as 100 dogs and 70 cats, the BBC reported. 

Farthing, his 24 staff members and their families could have fled the country on Wednesday aboard a British military aircraft, but he refused to leave without his animals. He said he later received the British government’s approval to land with the animals, but a sudden change in visa requirements on Friday inadvertently left his staff unable to join his flight out of Kabul.

“It’s one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make in my life,” Farthing said on Monday of his decision to leave his staff in Afghanistan on British talk show Good Morning Britain. 

Farthing’s efforts to get his animals out of Afghanistan have been controversial from the start. Some have accused him of favoring animals’ lives over humans in a country many fear would return to hard-line Islamic rule under the Taliban.

“What would you say if I sent an ambulance to save my dog rather than to save your mother?” British lawmaker Tom Tugendhat asked in a radio interview, criticizing the use of British military resources to save the animals.

But Farthing and animal rights groups have insisted that the operation did not take away any seats from humans.

“This was never about animals before people,” said Steve McIvor, the CEO of World Animal Protection, an animal welfare group that supports Farthing’s operation. 

“This is a humanitarian mission that also involved the rescue of roughly 170 animals who travelled in the hold of the charter plane,” he told VICE World News in an email. 

In general, humans are banned from riding in a plane’s cargo hold, and the international evacuation campaign in Kabul has been limited not by seating capacity but by access to the airport.

Farthing and his animal shelter, Nowzad, did not respond to repeated requests for comment last week.

After serving in Afghanistan in the mid-2000s, Farthing set up the shelter in Kabul, rescuing stray dogs, cats, and overburdened donkeys. Since Nowzad’s launch in 2006, the organization has reunited 1,600 soldiers with animals they bonded with during their deployment in Afghanistan.

But since the Taliban took control of the country earlier this month, Nowzad’s efforts have instead been focused on evacuating all personnel and animals.

In an effort dubbed “Operation Ark,” Farthing hoped to fly his animals and staff members, as well as their families, to safety. His staff included three of Afghanistan’s first women veterinarians, who could be barred from working under Taliban rule. During its first rule of the country in the 90s, the Islamic fundamentalist group banned girls from attending school and women from working.

Farthing has blamed the U.S. government, which currently controls operations at Kabul airport, for suddenly changing visa requirements, thereby making Farthing’s staff’s paperwork invalid. It’s unclear what specific changes were made, but following the deadly attack by the Taliban on Thursday, President Joe Biden said evacuation efforts would focus on Americans, Afghan allies and those most at risk under Taliban rule. 

The last British military flight left Kabul on Saturday after evacuating more than 15,000 people in two weeks.

The shelter’s remaining staff have told Farthing they would try another way to leave the country. 

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