Tens of thousands of Afghans were yesterday racing to flee their country as the US warned of security threats at Kabul’s chaotic airport and the EU said that it was “impossible” to evacuate everyone at risk from the Taliban.
In the week since the Taliban took back power in Afghanistan, the group vowed a softer version of its brutal rule from 1996 to 2001, and taken steps toward forming a government.
However, terrified Afghans continue to try to flee, deepening a tragedy at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, where the US and its allies have been unable to cope with the huge number of people trying to get on evacuation flights.
Photo: AP
Yesterday, the British Ministry of Defence said that seven people had died in the crowds, without further details.
A journalist, who was among a group of media workers and academics who struggled to get to the airport for a flight, described desperate scenes of people surrounding their bus on the way in.
“They were showing us their passports and shouting: ‘Take us with you... Please take us with you,’” the journalist said. “A Taliban fighter in the truck ahead of us had to shoot in the air to make them go away.”
Britain’s Sky News on Saturday aired footage of at least three bodies covered in white tarpaulin outside the airport. It was not clear how they had died.
Sky News reporter Stuart Ramsay, who was at the airport, called the deaths “inevitable” and said that people were being “crushed,” while others were “dehydrated and terrified.”
The footage was the latest image of utter despair, after a video of a baby being lifted over a wall at the airport and horror scenes of people hanging onto departing planes.
The US, which has thousands of troops trying to secure the airport, has set a deadline to complete the evacuations by Tuesday next week.
However, there are up to 15,000 Americans and 50,000 to 60,000 Afghan allies who need to be evacuated, US President Joe Biden’s administration said.
There are countless others who fear repression under the Taliban and are also trying to flee.
Biden has described the evacuation operations as “one of the largest, most difficult airlifts in history.”
On Saturday, the situation was further complicated when the US government told its citizens to stay away from the airport because of “security threats.”
No specific reason was given, but a White House official later said that Biden had been briefed on security threats, including from the Islamic State group.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell gave a bleak assessment of whether the airlift would succeed.
“They want to evacuate 60,000 people between now and the end of this month. It’s mathematically impossible,” he said.
Borrell added that “we have complained” to the US that their airport security was overly strict and hampering attempts by Afghans who worked for the Europeans to enter.
Last week, the Taliban stunned the world when they swept into Kabul, ending two decades of war, facing virtually no opposition from government forces that had been trained and equipped by the US-led alliance.
However, there have been since been flickers of resistance with some former government troops gathering in the Panjshir Valley, a mountainous region north of Kabul.
One of the leaders of the movement, named the National Resistance Front, is the son of famed anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud.
The front is prepared for a “long-term conflict,” but is also still seeking to negotiate with the Taliban about an inclusive government, group spokesman Ali Maisam Nazary said in an interview.
“The conditions for a peace deal with the Taliban are decentralization: a system that ensures social justice, equality, rights and freedom for all,” he said.
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