Afghan refugee gives birth on US evacuation plane

WASHINGTON (NewsNation Now) — An Afghan woman gave birth on board a U.S. evacuation plane on Saturday, moments after landing at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the U.S. Air Force said.

The woman delivered a baby girl in the cargo bay of an Air Force C-17 aircraft after going into labor and experiencing complications during the flight, U.S. Air Mobility Command said on Twitter. “The aircraft commander decided to descend in altitude to increase air pressure in the aircraft, which helped stabilize and save the mother’s life,” the tweet said.

The woman was part of a group fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan and was on the second stage of an evacuation flight that’d taken off from a base in the Middle East.

The mother and baby were transported to a medical facility and were in good condition, the tweet said.

Army Major General William Taylor said that the United States has evacuated 17,000 people, including 2,500 Americans, from Kabul in the past week.

The Pentagon said Sunday that it is formally seeking airlift help from commercial airlines to relocate evacuees from Afghanistan once they have gotten out of their country.

The Taliban’s swoop into power and the collapse of the Afghan army came as U.S.-led forces were withdrawing after a 20-year war that Biden sought to conclude.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.