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The US Embassy in Afghanistan has advised US citizens to avoid traveling to Kabul airport due to “potential security threats.”
Sky chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay is there reporting what he saw on Saturday morning as thousands wait to enter to be evacuated.
The mornings are always trying on the barricades. British soldiers know that after a night of waiting for the evacuation process to resume, the tens of thousands camped on the road to their base will try to clear their way.
Today was different. Very different.
British soldiers have identified those in need of evacuation
Today it got chaotic in an instant.
Within minutes it was an emergency, nothing to do with the process; soldiers found themselves trying to save lives.
The soldiers were working hard to try to handle the situation
In the front row of the queue, people were crushed to death.
Paratroopers began pulling people out of the chaos, with medics rushing from victim to victim, then next and next.
The scene got chaotic on Saturday morning
Crushed, dehydrated, terrified.
Standing atop the perimeter wall, the soldiers sprayed the crowd with a hose – anything to cool them off.
Stuart Ramsay saw a lot of men, women and especially children at the airport
We saw men, women and many, many children.
And then what we had all dreaded started to happen.
The soldiers started shouting for medics and stretchers as unconscious people were carried to the rear. Doctors checked their vital signs and then covered the bodies with white sheets.
Everywhere Stuart Ramsay looked there were soldiers pulling families out of the crowd to bring them to safety
“Is this a stabilized withdrawal from Afghanistan? ” I was thinking.
It feels like death to me, death trying to achieve freedom.
In the chaos, units rush through the crowds to shore up weak spots in the evacuation center – everyone is working hard to try to stem the tide of an ongoing disaster.
Taliban takeover meant planning was immediately obsolete
No matter where you look, it’s the same desperation – American soldiers, British soldiers, Spanish soldiers, German soldiers, Polish soldiers, pulling children, entire families from the pens and the crowds behind which they were kept for treatment.
One has the impression that these people fear that their dreams of flying will fade away with the passing of the days.
Soldiers sometimes have to shoot in the air for fear of losing crowd control.
A potential evacuee has a drink
But it seems unlikely that a gunshot could ever calm frightened people.
This evacuation was based on the fact that Kabul would remain in government hands, it was always going to be quick and difficult, but the Taliban’s flash takeover meant that planning was instantly outdated.
Looking back, set up the treatment center at the end of a long narrow street, issue a press release saying the UK would take 20,000 Afghans without explicitly explaining that it would be in the next 5 years, then deploy a small group of soldiers given the job of treating people in the first place while maintaining military security – turns into a planning disaster.
Scenes outside Kabul airport are distressing for many observers
If this is to be reversed they will need more time but time is running out
Here pain and compassion meet every minute of every day now.
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