OXFORD MP Anneliese Dodds has expressed her concern over the ‘very unsafe situation’ that UK citizens in Afghanistan are in.

According to reports, several people have been killed at Kabul airport as Afghans flee following the Taliban’s takeover of the country.

The Taliban arrived in Kabul – Afghanistan’s capital – unopposed and seized the presidential palace.

Oxford East MP Ms Dodds said: “The situation in Afghanistan is deeply concerning.

“It is right that parliament has been recalled for Wednesday after pressure from Labour and other opposition parties, but the Conservative government has been passive for too long.

“It desperately needs to provide leadership, including working with countries in the region on the developing humanitarian and security crises.

“These are desperately sad days, not least for the families of the hundreds of UK servicemen and women who lost their lives over the last twenty years in Afghanistan and indeed the many servicemen and women who still bear injuries from their service.

“I am also aware of the contribution of large numbers of aid workers from Oxford to Afghanistan, often working in desperately dangerous conditions.

“A first priority for the Government, in addition to removing UK citizens safely, must surely be to radically improve the process for taking to safety in the UK those Afghans who supported the 150,000 Brits who served in Afghanistan over the last two decades.

“Far too many people who helped our military, media and international development services are being left in Afghanistan and are now in a very unsafe situation indeed.

“The Conservative government must improve and speed up the process to get those brave people to safety in the UK.”

Ms Dodds also raised concerns over how events could impact women and children in Afghanistan.

She said: “I have heard accounts from a number of women in Afghanistan who are extremely concerned about the future.

“Already, women and children form the majority of those displaced from their homes by the Taliban’s advance.

“Unfortunately the UK government had already scaled back its commitment to Afghan girls and women, removing for example a programme benefitting 6,000 vulnerable Afghan women.

“If Boris Johnson genuinely believes that girls’ education was the ‘crowning achievement’ of the UK’s presence in Afghanistan, as he said himself in Kabul when foreign secretary, he must now show leadership.”