Afghanistan: thousands of people remain blocked in Kabul as reports of massacres arrive from the interior

Maria Laura Avignolo

08/20/2021 12:05

• Clarín.com

• World

Updated 08/20/2021 12:05

Thousands of Afghans and foreigners are desperately blocked in Kabul because Taliban controls do not allow them to reach the airport or the documentation processing center.

Although 18,000 people have been evacuated and 1000 in the last hours, at this rate it will be difficult for August 31 to be the date established by President Joe Biden to leave Afghanistan because the situation is tense and becomes chaotic day by day.

The deadline could be extended.

The acceleration of the evacuation is indispensable, when the tension grows by the minute and the Taliban can decide to abort it whenever they want.

They

are in charge of the security

of those who have to pass to emigrate.

There are citizens with European and American passports who cannot get through this

logistical nightmare.

Desperate families continue to

hand over their children

to strangers to be taken out of the country.

They continue to throw their babies through the airport wall to the soldiers, who hand them over to those who can leave, because they can't get there and they want to save them.

Look also

Images of women in Afghanistan, with the return of the Taliban, fear for their fundamental rights, such as working, studying or going alone on the street

When the Taliban has started a "public relations battle" for its new restraint in Kabul in front of the world, its historical brutality is being felt by the Afghans, who have remained in the country, and by the Shiite minorities, which the Sunni militiamen

do not. they respect and murder.

Massacres

Amnesty International denounced the brutal massacre of

nine Hazaras men

, the country's Shiite minority, in the advance of the military offensive towards Kabul in July.

It reported that "in Ghazni Taliban fighters recently tortured and massacred nine members of the Hazara minority, Shiite Muslims, during their offensive."

It was in the month of July in Ghazni and you can only get to know it now.

According to witnesses who spoke to Amnesty, the Taliban militiamen

waited and will ambush

a group of Hazara men.

“They took them home, strangled

them

and

cut off their arms and legs

.

Six of the men were executed and the other three were tortured to death by the Taliban, ”according to Amnesty.

The Hazara are an Afghan Shiite minority, the most persecuted, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are considered

Islamic republics

.

This new massacre evokes the mass execution of the Hazaras over four days in the province of Bamyan, where they killed 170, when they were in power.

The resistance

This minority

is trying to flee Afghanistan

or their men are joining the rebel forces of the son of Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud (one of the main leaders of Afghanistan's anti-Soviet resistance in the 1980s) in the Panjshir Valley, where 10,000 men are already preparing to attack the Taliban.

Among them

are parts of the Afghan army

, which has evaporated, with its weapons, tanks and supplies.

A beauty salon in Kabul, closed and with graffiti.

Photo: EFE

A Taliban diplomatic face in Kabul not to lose international aid and get vaccines against the Covid Pandemic and other conduct on the ground.

The Taliban are making it difficult for the evacuation in Kabul and those who want to advance towards the capital in the interior.

They go house to house with “a blacklist” of Afghans looking for them, threatening to join the ranks of the Taliban.

Germany evacuates from within

The relative of a journalist who works for the most famous German news agency was killed by the Taliban because the one they were looking for had already fled the country.

"The militants have killed the relative of a Deutsche Welle reporter and seriously injured another," the German public broadcaster said.

Deutsche Welle (DW) said that "the Taliban have been conducting door-to-door searches to find the journalist," who now works in Germany.

"Other relatives were able to flee and

are in hiding,

" according to the station.

"The murder of a close relative of one of our publishers by the Taliban is inconceivably tragic. It testifies to

the grave danger

in which all our employees and their families are in Afghanistan," said DW CEO Peter Limbourg.

"It is clear that the Taliban are already conducting organized searches for journalists, both in Kabul and in the provinces.

Time is running out!

" Said the director general of DW.

Afghans on a Spanish armed forces plane already at Dubai airport.

Photo.

EFE

Germany will send two helicopters to Kabul on an evacuation mission. "Germans at risk in remote regions of Afghanistan will be rescued by helicopter," a Defense Ministry spokesman said.

Special Forces often use light helicopters to evacuate citizens in crisis situations.

A German man was shot

on the way to the Kabul airport.

"A German civilian suffered a gunshot wound on his way to Kabul airport," he added.

"He is receiving medical attention. But his life is not in danger and he will soon be airlifted," the German spokeswoman said.

Afghan journalists have reported their homes being beaten and raided since the Taliban seized power in Kabul on Sunday.

The role of British paratroopers

In the last 24 hours, 963 people were evacuated from Kabul by the British Royal Air Force and a total of 18,000 people have departed from Afghanistan, as

the chaos at the airport continues.

They do not let them pass to those who wait to complete their paperwork.

British Paras troops, who fought in Helmand against the Taliban, are dealing with 'hundreds' of people at the airport, who should be at the US base and claim that

"there is no one there" to attend to them.

The most difficult mission is to extract future passengers from the crowd, knowing that many of them will never be able to board and their lives are in danger.

Consulate staff can identify people to evacuate.

But the crowd becomes enraged when they are taken away and the others are left, generating

violent situations

. "Sometimes we are 50 meters away from them and they cannot get out," explained a consul.

Former British minister and former prime minister Rory Stewart, who toured Afghanistan on foot in 2000, called the UK and US military withdrawal from Afghanistan "completely unnecessary."

He said it has led to a "disgraceful humanitarian catastrophe" and has given a "significant victory" to militant groups.

Desperate families

Desperate families continue to crowd Kabul airport in hopes of boarding a flight.

Pakistan's state airline has resumed evacuation flights from Kabul, in an attempt to relocate Pakistanis and other foreigners, who remain stranded abroad.

Minister Fawad Chaudhry said Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) will send two planes to the Afghan capital on Friday to evacuate 350 passengers.

This comes days after the PIA stopped all flights to Kabul to protect passengers, crew and aircraft, after consulting with Afghan civil aviation authorities.

Government after evacuation

The Taliban are in

tribal discussions

about the new government.

Negotiator Anas Haqqani, the current leader of the clan after the death of his father, said that the formation of

an "inclusive government" will not occur until August 31

, the day marked for Western forces to leave the country.

He has made an agreement with the United States to "do nothing" until the final withdrawal, which could be postponed.

The Taliban will have to replace its security forces and its defense forces.

In two cities of the country, in Jalalabad and Gahzni

, protests

against the presence

have started

using the old red, black and green Afghan flag, which the Taliban wants to replace with its own.

The Taliban entered the closed Indian consulate in Kabul to remove documents from its interior and parked cars.

They also entered the consulate in Kandahar and Herat.

India is the declared enemy

of the Taliban and Pakistan.

The UN Food program announced that

"a humanitarian crisis

of incredible proportions is unfolding before our eyes in Afghanistan."

Mary Ellen McGroarty, the head of the program, called on the international community to "defend the Afghan people at this time."

His staff must remain in Afghanistan to help "the 14 million people at risk of malnutrition and with 40 percent of crops lost due to drought."

Paris, correspondent

ap

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