As many as 118 Nepalis arrived in Kathmandu from Afghanistan via Kuwait on Tuesday morning.

They were evacuated to Kuwait from Afghanistan on Monday, a day after the Taliban took control of the Afghan capital Kabul.

Nine Indians also arrived along with the Nepalis, officials said.

“The evacuees have landed in Kathmandu,” Brigadier General Santosh Ballave Poudyal, Nepal Army spokesperson, told the Post. “We will receive them and take them to a holding centre at Samakhusi.”

After Kabul fell to the Taliban ending the United States’ era in Afghanistan, like any other country in the world, Nepal too has been scrambling to evacuate its citizens from the war-torn country. The Sher Bahadur Deuba government has requested all foreign missions and the United Nations and its agencies who employ Nepalis to help rescue its citizens.

Those who arrived on Tuesday were evacuated by the Americans.

The government does not have the exact number of Nepalis working in Afghanistan.

According to the Department of Foreign Employment, in the last fiscal year, ending mid-July, 1,073 Nepalis had obtained labour permits to work in Afghanistan. The department’s statistics show that in the last seven years, more than 8,000 Nepalis have been issued labour permits to Afghanistan.

But there are no figures of undocumented Nepali workers, and estimates suggest there could be more than 14,000. Afghanistan is one of the key countries, despite high risk, where Nepalis prefer to go due to high pay.