In Kabul, the image of 600 Afghans in an American plane becomes a symbol of the flight from the Taliban – archyde

An iconic photo of the flight of some of the inhabitants of Kabul upon the arrival of the Taliban on Sunday, August 15, shows more than 600 Afghans – men, women and children – crammed into a single US military plane as it took off from the United States. capital’s international airport. Obtained and posted by the military news site Defense One, the image was taken inside a US Air Force Boeing C-17 aircraft.

Among those in the photo is a baby in a woman’s lap, holding a bottle. Several other people appear, with young children. No material goods are visible among the passengers except for a small suitcase and a backpack in the foreground. About 640 people were counted when they left the device, writes Defense One, for an aircraft designed, according to Boeing, to accommodate 134 passengers (soldiers and their equipment), on seats installed on the sides of the aircraft or on the ground.

“The unusually high number of passengers on board this aircraft (…) was the result of a dynamic security environment, which demanded quick decisions from the crew ”, commented, in a press release published on Monday, the command of the US military in the Middle East and Central Asia (US Central Command, CentCom). “Ultimately, this made it possible to evacuate these passengers from the country in complete safety”, ensures the text. The flight landed in Qatar early Monday morning, according to FlightAware flight tracking site.

The people squeezed in the huge hold of the aircraft had been authorized by the US authorities to be evacuated from the country, according to a senior US defense official quoted by Defense One. Such a large number of passengers was not expected in a single flight: many desperate people climbed inside at the last moment through the still half-open ramp at the back of the plane.

In 2013, 670 people in a C-17 in the eastern Philippines

“The crew made the decision to go” rather than forcing them back down, explained the same official. This scene occurred as Taliban fighters took to the streets of Kabul and panicked residents rushed to the airport to try to find a flight to overseas.

This is also not the first time that the Boeing C-17, widely used for public transport by the US military, has carried out such a major evacuation. In 2013, an American C-17 had embarked more than 670 people in the eastern Philippines, after Typhoon Haiyan hit.

Kabul Airport was the scene of scenes of chaos and despair on Monday. The tarmac and runways were overrun with thousands of people hoping to board a flight out of the country. Many did not have permission to take an evacuation flight, nor a ticket for a commercial flight, nor even a visa. In harrowing videos posted on social media, hundreds of people run past a accelerating C-17, some clinging to the sides of the plane.

Another video shows attack helicopters hovering over the crowds at low altitude, in an apparent attempt to clear the runway for a plane. The Afghan media reported several deaths, fallen from aircraft to which they were attached during take-off.