The first morning of Afghanistan’s return to Taliban rule saw the streets of the capital empty, but violent scenes at the airport with regular bursts of shooting and witnesses speaking of up to five people dead in the chaos.
Both US troops and Taliban fighters fired in the air as a desperate crowd rushed there in the hope of getting on civilian flights most of which had, in fact, been cancelled. Others went on to the military side of the airport where American, British and other foreign governments were airlifting their nationals as well as some Afghans who had worked for them out of the country.
Some flights on Sunday evening had to abort take offs when families with luggage went on to the runways. American troops later cleared the area, putting up barbed wires in an effort to stop further incursions. There were unconfirmed reports that evacuation flights may have been temporarily suspended on Monday.
The Taliban set up checkpoints on the airport road on Monday morning and were seen to be checking the identities of some of those trying to get through – a source of fear among those who were trying to get on flights organised by US and UK for their services to the respective governments.
Even after getting past the Islamist fighters some of them found it impossible to get to the military side from where the evacuation was being organised. A former security guard who said he had a British visa told The Independent that he and his family were forced back while those without the relevant paperwork simply pushed through.
The 36-year-old man, originally from Kunduz, who had worked with both the British in Helmand and Kabul, said: “We went to the airport on Saturday and waited for six hours, we saw people who did not have visas or papers rush past us, we couldn’t do anything as we had our young children with us. One of my daughters started feeling very ill, she is four years old, and my wife insisted that we go back home.”
The family, parents and three children, set off for the airport again on Sunday, but turned back at the Taliban checkpoint.
“Maybe they would not have checked me, maybe they wouldn’t have known about me, but I could not take the chance” he said. “We went back home. I don’t think it’ll be possible for the British to find me here, I don’t know what to do now.”
Others were angered by the US earlier taking charge of the airport and, it was claimed, halting civilian flights.
Rahima Samsuddine, a teacher, said: “It’s quite simple, I don’t want to live in this country under the Taliban. I didn’t ask the Americans for help, I was meant to go to Istanbul on a flight I had arranged myself. The American troops left our country to the Taliban, now they are preventing Afghans from using their own airport to leave the mess they made.”
The reports of deaths at the airport were carried by a number of news organisations with the Wall Street Journal saying three had been shot dead. The security guard who spoke to The Independent said he saw an elderly man collapse.
“His family were trying to revive him, but I am not sure they managed to do it”, he said.
More than 70 countries, including European Union member states called on all parties in Afghanistan to "respect and facilitate" the departure of foreign nationals and Afghans who wish to leave.
They said: "those in positions of power and authority across Afghanistan bear responsibility — and accountability — for the protection of human life and property, and for the immediate restoration of security and civil order.”
The Taliban said that people should go back to their homes if they could not get on flights. “They should not be afraid to do so”, said an official. “ The overcrowding at the airport is dangerous.”
