MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Nearly 200 Afghan nationals have been flown on to the United States after their special immigration visas were processed in the Philippines as part of an agreement between Manila and Washington, the U.S. Embassy in Manila said Sunday.

The Afghans left the Philippines in several groups on commercial flights last week after completing their application process for resettlement in the U.S., according to the embassy spokesperson Kanishka Gangopadhyay.

An embassy statement expressed “deep appreciation to the government of the Philippines for their cooperation and support for U.S. efforts to assist Afghan special immigrants.”

The Afghans, including many children, arrived in the Philippines on Jan. 6. Details of their numbers and location were kept secret by U.S. and Philippine officials. Washington covered the cost of their stay in the Philippines.

The Afghans primarily worked for the U.S. government in Afghanistan or were deemed eligible for U.S. special immigrant visas but were left behind when U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from Afghanistan after 20 years of war in August 2021 as the Taliban seized power.

At the time, the Taliban takeover exposed Afghan supporters of U.S. forces to potential retaliatory attacks by Afghanistan’s new rulers.

Outgoing President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump have blamed one another for the chaotic pullout of U.S. forces.

Biden discussed the Afghan resettlement issue with Philippines leader Ferdinand Marcos Jr. when he visited the U.S. last year, Philippine officials said. In July, the Philippines agreed to temporarily host a U.S. immigrant visa processing center for the Afghan nationals although there were concerns over security due to threats faced by some of the Afghans trying to flee from the Taliban rule.

A senior Philippine official said last year that the accommodation in the Philippines was a one-time deal.

Marcos has rekindled relations with the U.S. since his 2022 election victory and has allowed an expansion of the American military presence under a 2014 defense agreement in a decision that has alarmed China.

The Marcos administration has also broadened military and defense ties with the U.S., Japan and Australia and moved to build stronger security relations with France, New Zealand and Canada to strengthen its territorial defense, including in the disputed South China Sea.

That has dovetailed with the Biden administration efforts to boost an arc of security alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better address concerns over China’s increasingly aggressive actions, including in the South China Sea, the East China Sea and in the Taiwan Strait, that have raised tensions to their highest level in decades.

Funding cuts to Afghanistan are the biggest threat to helping the country’s women, the chief of a top aid agency warned Sunday.

Jan Egeland, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said women and girls were bearing the brunt of dwindling financial support for nongovernmental groups and humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.

The NRC helped 772,484 Afghans in 2022. That number fell to 491,435 in 2023. Last year, the aid agency helped 216,501 people. Half of its beneficiaries are women.

Egeland, who has made several visits to Afghanistan since 2021, said: “We see one after the other peer organization cutting programming and staff in the last two years. The biggest threat to programs helping Afghan women is funding cuts. The biggest threat to the future well-being of Afghan women is (the lack of) education.”

The Taliban takeover in August 2021 drove millions into poverty and hunger after foreign aid stopped almost overnight.

Sanctions against the country’s new rulers, a halt on bank transfers and frozen billions in Afghanistan’s currency reserves have cut off access to global institutions and the outside money that supported the aid-dependent economy before the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces.

The U.N. and others have urged the international community to continue supporting the beleaguered country.

Organizations like the Norwegian Refugee Council have helped keep public services afloat through education and health care programs, including nutrition and immunization.

But women and girls face more obstacles in accessing health care and education because of restrictions imposed by authorities and an ongoing shortage of female medical professionals, also exacerbated by Taliban decrees.

Egeland said Afghan women and girls had not forgotten world leaders telling them their “number one priority” was education and human rights. “Now we can’t even fund livelihood programming for widows and single mothers,” he told The Associated Press by telephone from the western province of Herat.

The international community provided humanitarian assistance in many countries where they disagreed with local policies. But opposition to Taliban policies, together with a “general starving” of aid funding in many countries, was worsening the shortfall in Afghanistan, he said.

Egeland said most of his discussions with Taliban officials on his trip were about the need to resume classes for women and girls. “They still argue that it will happen, but the conditions are not right,” he said. “They say they need to agree on what the conditions are.”