In a voice quivering with fear and exhaustion, Sara pleaded down the phone: “Please, get us out of here. The situation is very bad, we are trapped in a hell.”
For the past four days, Sara, who asked for her real name not to be used, has waited with her family among the thousands of people outside the gates of Kabul airport, desperately trying to board a US evacuation flight.
In the past few days, she said she had seen more than 15 people, including children, shot before her eyes, witnessed her uncle beaten brutally by Taliban fighters and had her nights on the hard street outside the airport gates interrupted by crowd surges and the panic-inducing crack of gunfire.
The crowds were packed in so tightly it was hard to breathe, and people had been trampled to death, she said, adding that the putrid stench of rubbish was getting worse by the day. They had run out of food and water. “My mental state is completely broken,” said Sara.
Sara and her four family members have all been issued US visas for evacuation from Afghanistan and received instructions in a letter from the US consul to go directly to Camp Sullivan, the US military base at Kabul airport, on 18 August. They were told to be prepared to wait hours, and bring bedding with them. But when they arrived on Wednesday, they found thousands blocking the entrance, and all the gates closed. They have not opened for them, and there has been no further information.
“No one is allowed through, even with visas,” she said. “No one from the US is helping us. No one is telling us which gate to go to – we don’t even know when the US flights are leaving. There is violence everywhere but every gate we go to is closed and no one gives us any information or shows any mercy.” » | Hannah Ellis-Petersen, South Asia correspondent | Saturday, August 21, 2021
