Afghanistan: chaos at Kabul airport hinders access to evacuation flights

Shots in the air, smoke, deterrent explosions, Here’s how security forces react to thousands of Afghans, including children, trying to gain access to Kabul airport go on an evacuation flight, where chaos and lack of organization make it almost impossible to access the premises, even for those who have been summoned by the embassies.

“I spend the hardest days and nights of my life here», Recognizes the agency EFE in tears Bashir, 41, father of six. Every time they try to approach the door, he says, the security guards push them away.

Bashir and his family wear three days without leaving the place, near the access to the north gate of the airport, where the military zone is located from where the repatriation flights organized by the United States and European countries.

This father accepts, however, that these are “bad times” that must be overcome in life, because the important thing is to be able to escape as quickly as possible a “worse” life in Afghanistan under the new Taliban regime, which proclaimed its victory last Sunday with the capture of Kabul after 20 years of war.

This Taliban victory sparked chaos inside Kabul International Airport, with thousands desperately trying to leave the country by any plane.Some even started to hang on to the plane, a situation that has now changed with the control of the airfield by US troops, but not overseas.

This Wednesday, the United States government is put pressure on the Taliban to allow Afghans to leave the country by the airport controlled by American forces, as they had promised and they’re not complying, Assistant Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said on Wednesday.

Thousands of people, including children and the elderly, from Kabul and other Afghan provinces, spend their days and nights outside the closed airport gates, so that only a few, after long hours in the sun pushing, falling and getting up, can enter.

But even those who exceed the first checkThey must then climb the access door, not opening for safety to prevent people from trying to enter en masse.

And is Every few minutes, a stampede causes dozens of people weakened by the heat and long hours of waiting, pushed by the crowds, to lose consciousness as children scream and cry and their families try to avoid being trampled on .

Chaos at the airport

In recent days, the United States has deployed 6,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and others 1,000 they are on their way to help with the evacuation efforts, but this military muscle is not visible in the coordination of access to the enclosure.

The only a few American and Afghan soldiers, who refused to surrender to the Taliban or to flee, prevent the crowd from rushing to the door, but no one is trying to facilitate passage through a bottleneck through which it is almost impossible to access.

It doesn’t matter if you have valid passports or visas, have letters of recommendation, or are on repatriation lists. Others were less likely to try their luck with Afghan ID cards, and even a man in the crowd tried to show an electricity bill as a pass.

But Afghans or foreigners, they all suffer from the same problem: chaotic door access, as confirmed today by several Dutch citizens, who were unable to access the airport despite being summoned by diplomatic staff by email, according to Dutch television. WE.

The Taliban, meanwhile, watch from afar without intervening, while trying to control crowd-touched traffic, in an apparent non-aggression deal that allowed for the arrival of all those Afghans who, due to their ties to the government or to foreign countries, see their lives in danger under the insurgent regime as soon as external attention is extinguished.

But this crowd not only suffers the humiliation of a chaotic expectation, but also of a few passers-by, who hurl abuse at them and attack them. “Do not shoot in the air, lower your gun and kill 30 of these traitors, so that they understand what are the consequences of the treasonShouted a taxi driver.

With information from the EFE

KEEP READING: