Afghan woman gives birth to baby girl on US plane during evacuation

The American Air Force told this Sunday on Twitter that an Afghan had given birth to a little girl in the military apparatus aboard which she was exfiltrated. The plane must have landed on the tarmac at the base in Ramstein, Germany, after the young woman felt the first contractions in midair.

For a week since the Taliban took Kabul, completing their conquest of Afghanistan and securing their stranglehold on the country, the Afghan population has gone from tragedy to tragedy. These are concentrated around Kabul International Airport, the last enclave still controlled by the Western powers there and the last hope of Afghans wishing to flee the reestablishment of power by the Islamists. This Sunday, the British Ministry of Defense deplored the death of seven people in crowd movements born around the airfield.

However, that same day, a happy event fell from the sky on the sidelines of these emergency exfiltration operations. The US Air Force has indeed reported on Twitter that an Afghan had given birth the day before her little girl aboard the aircraft which evacuated her.

It is on Ramstein Air Base, a structure owned by the US Army although located in Germany – and which inspired its name to the famous Metal band -, that history has found its epilogue. However, it had started a few thousand meters higher, in the middle of the clouds.

“While on a flight from an intermediate support base in the Middle East (as CNN notes here, the American evacuations regularly make a hook by Qatar, editor’s note), the mother felt the first pains and experienced complications “, thus tweeted the account of the Air Mobility Command of the US Air Force this Sunday.

At this critical moment, the device carrying the Afghan woman, a C-17, flies 8,534 meters above the ground.

The pilot saved the life of the mother and her child

An altitude which immediately pushes the pilot to take a first initiative. “The pilot decided to descend to altitude in order to increase the air pressure in the plane, which helped stabilize it and save the mother’s life,” the US military continues on the social network .

The machine landed in stride on the runway at Ramstein Air Base, where the 86th US Air Force medical unit came to the rescue to perform childbirth and this, inside the hold. The mother and her granddaughter are then sent to a medical facility. Both are doing well, it was further clarified on Twitter.

According to a statement relayed by Agence France-Presse AFP), 7,000 people have been evacuated by the United States, including 2,500 Americans, since August 14, when the Taliban were at the gates of Kabul.