Qatar is offering COVID-19 vaccines to evacuees from Afghanistan who are temporarily staying in the Gulf Arab state, which has been facilitating global evacuation efforts since the Taliban seized Kabul, the foreign ministry said on Thursday.
Qatar, which hosts the largest US military base in the region, has so far helped evacuate more than 40,000 people to Doha and will continue to facilitate international efforts in "the coming days", the ministry said in a statement.
Those who do not immediately transit to other countries are being provided with a PCR test and COVID-19 vaccine, if requested, it said, adding that Doha is temporarily hosting "a large number of evacuees most of them students, families and journalists".
Pressure to complete moving out thousands of foreigners and Afghans who helped Western countries during the 20-year war against the Taliban has intensified, with all US and allied troops due to leave the airport next week.
Qatar has also agreed with the United States to temporarily host 8,000 Afghan nationals.
Israel announced a major expansion of military operations in Gaza on Wednesday, saying large areas of the enclave would be seized and added to its security zones, accompanied by large-scale evacuation of population.
A fourth US Army soldier, who together with three others went missing in Lithuania last week when their vehicle sank in a peat bog, has been found dead, US and Lithuanian officials said on Tuesday.
The United Nations on Tuesday dismissed as "ridiculous" an assertion by Israel that there was enough food in the Gaza Strip to last for a long period of time, despite the closure of all 25 bakeries supported by the World Food Programme (WFP).
United Nations officials who surveyed earthquake damage in Myanmar urged the global community to ramp up aid before the looming monsoon season worsens already catastrophic conditions, with the death toll at 2,719 and expected to surpass 3,000.
Syria suffered a nationwide power outage on Tuesday night due to malfunctions at several points in the national grid, a spokesperson from the energy ministry told Reuters.