Afghanistan: evacuations continue in chaos at Kabul airport

Published on : 08/21/2021 – 07:09

Roads paralyzed by crowds, cargo planes stormed, children thrown by their parents over barbed wire … Scenes of chaos continue at Kabul airport, six days after the Taliban took power when tens of thousands of Afghans are still desperate to flee their country.

This airlift is “one of the most important and difficult in history”, acknowledged Friday, August 20, in his second televised address in a few days, Joe Biden during a speech at the White House.

“I cannot promise what the final outcome will be”

“I can not promise what will be the final outcome” nor that there will be no “risk of loss” in human life, declared the president, assuring that the allies of Washington did not call back. cause the American “credibility” to carry out this operation.

He announced that 13,000 people had been evacuated by the US military since August 14. Thousands of others boarded planes, notably from European countries and Great Britain.

The United States alone is planning to remove 30,000 people. Most of the evacuees are American citizens who are allowed in by the Taliban.

But many Afghans, especially those who have worked for the United States and hold special immigration visas (SIVs) for themselves and their loved ones, cannot access the compound secured by more than 5,000 US military personnel.

On Friday, the US military had to deploy three helicopters to pick up 169 Americans who were unable to get to the airport from a hotel in Kabul. And there are still plenty of them, stuck between Taliban checkpoints and barbed wire erected by the US military, desperately waiting for a flight.

Among countless poignant testimonies, a video posted to social media shows Afghans pushing a crying baby over the crowd at the airport and giving it to an American soldier. According to the Pentagon, he was treated and then returned to his parents.

Faced with the criticisms and controversies that have agitated the United States since the lightning victory of the Taliban, the US military took charge of its communication on Friday by publishing an anthology of photographs showing its soldiers taking care of Afghan babies and young children at the airport. And Pentagon spokesman John Kirby to highlight the “compassion” of the soldiers.

Evacuations of civilians were suspended for several hours on Friday because of the saturation of American bases in the Gulf, especially in Qatar, where there are thousands of refugees.

The United States has obtained the green light from Berlin for some evacuees to be directed to Germany, where the United States has numerous military bases, including the great Ramstein and its important military hospital.

Hunting opponents

The Taliban are trying to convince that they are not seeking revenge on their former enemies, promising “many differences” from their previous reign, between 1996 and 2001, when they imposed an ultra-strict version of Islamic law which prevented women from working or studying and punished thieves and murderers with bloody punishments.

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But according to a report by a group of experts working for the UN, Afghanistan’s new masters have “priority lists” of wanted Afghans, the most at risk being military, police and military officers. intelligence.

The report says the Taliban are carrying out “targeted visits” to wanted persons and their families. Their checkpoints also filter Afghans in major cities and those wishing to access Kabul airport.

With AFP