The Minister of Foreign Affairs Bujar Osmani at the Skopje International Airport welcomed the first group of 149 Afghan evacuees, for whom the Republic of Macedonia expressed readiness to be their temporary shelter.

They are mostly people who worked for the Afghan Government and international NGO groups such as OGP, the World Economic Forum and Transparency International along with members of their families.

The solidarity that we have been announcing for a long time – we start to implement it in action starting today!  We constantly say that we are a welcoming country, that we know how to welcome everyone: Today we do not do anything different, today we only demonstrate our solidarity and our warm welcome to those who need it most, Minister Osmani told the press after the arrival of the first group of Afghan refugees in Macedonia.

He reminded that these are our allies, our partners who have been cooperating with our mission in Afghanistan for 20 years.