A number of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) – also known as Doctors Without Borders – doctors and health workers contracted by the organization on Monday held a rally in front of the MSF offices in Kabul calling for help to be evacuated.

The doctors and health care workers say they have worked in the health sector for several years in cooperation with foreign institutions and now want to leave the country.

They called on the international community, especially those in charge of MSF, to provide them with asylum and to not forget about them.

“We have worked with foreigners for many years and carried out health projects and cared for the sick and wounded, while we are in a state of despair. We call on MSF officials and the international community to take action to evacuate us from Afghanistan,” said Mirwais Haidari, a doctor.

“After the developments that have taken place, our work projects have stopped and we are in uncertainty and we want the doctors and health workers who have worked with foreigners to be transferred from Afghanistan, and we want asylum,” said Mohammad Zahir Tahir, another doctor.

Meanwhile, these doctors and health workers emphasize that MSF should not ignore the work they have done in Afghanistan and that serious steps should be taken to address their demands.

“We have provided a lot of services to foreigners in the field of health services, and today is the day to hear our voice and our request to be accepted to move us from Afghanistan,” said Zahra Ghulami, a nurse.

“We have worked with foreigners in the health sector and now we are in a state of disarray and our projects have stopped and our services should not be ignored and we call on the world to take action to transfer us from Afghanistan,” said Zarifa Karimi, another nurse.

The Taliban will allow all foreign nationals and Afghan citizens with travel authorisation from another country to leave Afghanistan, according to a joint statement issued by Britain, the United States and other countries.

“We have received assurances from the Taliban that all foreign nationals and any Afghan citizen with travel authorization from our countries will be allowed to proceed in a safe and orderly manner to points of departure and travel outside the country,” they said in the statement posted to US State Department’s website.

“We have the clear expectation of and commitment from the Taliban that they can travel to our respective countries,” read the statement.

The statement said the countries, which also included Australia, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Japan, France, Spain and many others, would continue to issue travel documents to designated Afghans.

This comes after the U.S. troops have begun their withdrawal from Kabul airport, the Pentagon said on Saturday, as the evacuation efforts from the Afghan capital entered the final stages.

As many as five rockets were fired at Kabul’s international airport but were intercepted by a missile defense system, a U.S. official told Reuters.

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the rockets were fired early Monday morning Kabul time, though it was unclear if all were brought down by the defense system.

Initial reports did not indicate any U.S. casualties, but that information could change, the official said.

Earlier on Sunday, American forces launched a drone strike in Kabul targeting a suicide bomber in a vehicle who was aiming to attack the airport, Reuters reported.

There is increasing concern that ISIS-K, locally known as Daesh, will launch further attacks on the airport as U.S. troops hurry to evacuate remaining American citizens and at-risk Afghans, before competing their own withdrawal by Aug. 31.

Officials had warned in the past that ISIS-K were looking to target the airport with rockets. But the United States has experience in countering such rockets, primarily in Iraq, and had already installed missile defense systems.

“We know that they (ISIS-K) would like to lob a rocket in there, if they could,” General Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, told reporters in Washington last week, Reuters reported.

“Now we actually have pretty good protection against that. We have our anti-rocket and mortar system,” McKenzie said.