Students in Afghanistan fear that their scholarships to study in Britain could make them targets of the Taliban.
Prime minister Boris Johnson intervened to say efforts would be made to accelerate their visas, hours after the Foreign Office defended its decision to block their scholarships.
The Foreign Office says it was deferring their Chevening scholarships for a year because it could not manage to administer their visas at the embassy in Kabul, which is now being evacuated.
Dr Nishank Motwani, the director of research and policy at ATR Consulting in Kabul, believes the looming evacuation of the UK embassy is the “final opportunity” to bring the students out of Afghanistan.