Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport has been, in recent days, flooded with Afghans, desperate to leave their country following the return to power of the Taliban regime. Videos have emerged from the airport of people literally clinging to a departing aircraft of the US Air Force, ending with people seen falling off the aircraft as it reaches mid-air.
Now, another video has emerged from the airport. It has been shared by the UK’s Daily Mail and shows a group of Afghan women pleading with the US troops, guarding the airport’s entrance gate, to let them in. “Help me, please. Help me. The Taliban are coming for me,” the women scream in their local language as they are separated from the guards by a heavily fortified gate.According to the Daily Mail’s report, as many as 50,000 people gathered at the airport on Wednesday in a bid to leave their homeland to a safer location. Evacuation flights are reported to be leaving with only 50% passengers, despite several countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, “vowing to take thousands of Afghan refugees each.” The report further states that most people arriving at the airport do not have travel documents.Afghanistan plunged into crisis on August 15, as the Taliban captured Kabul, thus seizing power for the first time since 2001, when it was driven away by the US-led troops who arrived in the country following the 9/11 attacks. the group’s surge towards the capital city, and eventual victory, was driven by the departure from Afghanistan of American troops, as directed by US president Joe Biden in April.