Euronews reports that the UK student who visited Afghanistan for a vacation on Friday has been successfully evacuated.
Earlier this week, Miles Routledge, 22, gained the attention of the internet after he posted about his experience on 4chan, Facebook, and Twitch.
“Thanks to the amazing personnel at the British army”, he was evacuated to Dubai today. It appears that he was on board a military plane with other evacuees when he uploaded the video.
“The Taliban let us go through the airport and we met many of them, very long transition period but everyone was smiling and waving at one another, some took selfies with them”
Routledge wrote in a Facebook post
Was Miles Routledge’s trip to Afghanistan for any particular reason?
He had been researching the ‘top 10 most dangerous places in the world’ since at least May.
“I kind of thought, what’s the most fun country I could go to that isn’t boring, as in, there’s some excitement in there and it’s different. I don’t want to go to London or even Spain. I googled the ten most dangerous countries in the world, and then I used that as a shopping list. At the top was Afghanistan. I messaged some people, watched some YouTube videos and thought ‘this stuff’s alright!’ I thought as the UK and US are still there, it’s got to be pretty safe. I thought ‘goofing off in Afghanistan…sounds good!’”
Miles Routledge, on the video streaming platform Twitch
It’s not the first time Routledge has visited a notorious location; two years ago, he visited Chernobyl. This, he says, inspired him to explore more “dark tourism.”
Routledge, on the other hand, had no idea how risky his journey would be. Afghanistan was deemed quite safe at the time he scheduled his trip, spending approximately €1,280 on airfare and a visa.
It was Routledge’s desire to see a country that has been so prominent in international events for the last 20 years that drew him to the region.
Routledge has stated that he would like to visit North Korea on his next trip.