Thursday, February 13

Striking image appears to show 640 people fleeing Kabul in packed US military plane


The ongoing deteriorating situation in Afghanistan has left everyone devastated. The Internet is flooded with heart-wrenching pictures and videos depicting the sad state of the Afghans who are desperate to leave the war-torn country since the Taliban took control of the presidential palace Arg in Kabul.

Midst of all despair, a heart-wrenching image has emerged which showed hundreds of Afghans crammed into massive US military cargo plane that left Kabul’s Hamid Karzai Airport on Sunday night. More than 600 people (640 to be specific) including women and children were safely evacuated from Kabul to Qatar by US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III.

Speaking to US defense and security news site Defense One, an official said that the aircraft was not intended to take on such a large load, but panicked Afghans who had been cleared to evacuate pulled themselves onto the C-17’s half-open ramp.

Instead of trying to force those refugees off the aircraft, the crew made the decision to go. Approximately 640 Afghan civilians disembarked the aircraft when it arrived at its destination, the defense official told the portal.

Meanwhile, 10 people were killed and several were injured at Kabul airport in the last two days as thousands tried to catch flights in an attempt to flee the country soon after the Taliban captured Kabul, local media reported.

People entered the airport from all sides despite the presence of US forces as well as troops from other nations attempting to secure the evacuations of their respective citizens and Afghan local staff. Shots were fired and a stampede ensued, both of which caused fatalities, TOLO News said.

US forces killed two armed people. Two other people were killed after they fell from a US military airplane in flight after takeoff. The people had apparently grabbed onto the aircraft from the outside. Some eyewitnesses said that 10 were wounded, TOLO News reported.