Only 300 American citizens still in Afghanistan are seeking to leave the country, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday, just days ahead of the US deadline for evacuations.

“We are down to a population of 300 or fewer Americans who are still on the ground there, and we are working actively in these hours and these days to get those folks out,” he told ABC.

Some Americans, Blinken said, had chosen to stay beyond the August 31 deadline set to complete the evacuation, but Blinken said “they are not going to be stuck in Afghanistan.” He said the US had “a mechanism to get them out.”