Escape attempt in death: Afghan football talent dies in desperate act

The rise of the Taliban to power drove many people from Afghanistan to flee.

You cannot imagine where it would be.

A young footballer paid with his life.

Kabul - It was sheer desperation: Afghan footballer Saki Anwari fell from the sky trying to cling to an American military machine.

The 19-year-old was a talented soccer player for the Afghan national youth team.

He still had his whole life ahead of him - but he didn't believe in a life in Afghanistan, where the Taliban horror has reigned since Sunday.

The Afghan sports association posted an obituary notice on Facebook for the young football talent, whose life ended so tragically: "May he rest in heaven and pray to God for his family, friends and sports colleagues," it says.

Afghanistan: People are fleeing the Taliban - There are only two solutions

The people who are not in favor of the Islamists have only two options: to flee or to hide.

"Delete your profiles in social media, erase your public identity, burn your sports equipment," advises soccer player Khalida Popal, who helped set up the first women's team in Afghanistan.

The 34-year-old now lives in Copenhagen and raises the alarm on Twitter.

She advises women to "keep their mouths shut".

The Taliban, who raped, stoned and murdered women in the past, will do so again now, writes Popal.

Afghanistan: Executions and Amputations - Will the Reign of Terror Repeat?

Already in the years 1996 to 2001 the Gahzi Stadium in Kabul was a place of cruelty. Public executions or amputations took place there, sometimes almost every week. Public executions are said to have taken place again in the stadium of the third largest Afghan city, Kandahar. Meanwhile, fighters of the Islamists announce on Twitter and in press conferences that they will neither marry twelve-year-old girls to fighters, nor murder, nor take revenge on "infidels" or helpers of the foreign armed forces.

But the pictures from Kabul show something else: a woman lies bleeding on the floor, a child's eye was gouged out, a man tarred, whipped and tied to a truck.

“Kabul is now becoming fatal,” writes journalist Sayed Mustafa Kazemi, reporter for Radio free Europe, on Twitter: The Taliban are moving from door to door to find and kill former security forces.

While pursuing a journalist for Deutsche Welle, the Taliban shoot one of his family members and seriously injure another.

The human rights organization Amnesty International warns that most Taliban crimes are not documented because they have interrupted cell phone reception in many places.

Kabul: Race against time for citizens at risk - US troops withdraw at the end of August

A report prepared for the UN quotes a letter from the Taliban in which they blackmail an ex-chief of the Afghan security forces: Either he surrenders or it is his own fault if his family members are arrested and die.

The network of Taliban checkpoints in Kabul is becoming increasingly dense.

At the airport they shoot randomly at the tens of thousands of people waiting.

To kill and to create chaos, which makes evacuation difficult.

How long the western armed forces will manage to fly people out of Kabul is uncertain.

The time pressure is growing.

The US wants to have withdrawn its troops by August 31st.

On Friday, a German was shot in Kabul on the way to the airport. He survived and is flown out - but many other people lose their lives at the airport. Heartbreaking scenes play out. People lift babies over the barbed wire barriers and hand them to US soldiers.

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