Desperate Afghan mothers trying to escape the Taliban ended up throwing their babies over barbed wire fences at Kabul airport.
Violent scenes have unfolded at one of the routes to Hamid Karzai International as people try to escape the Taliban the militant group.
There are fears that those who worked with the Afghan government face punishments and that human rights, particularly for women, will be abused if the group implements a strict application of sharia law.
The entrance to the Baron hotel is guarded by Parachute Regiment troops and has become the focal point where Afghans seeking refuge in the UK have been gathering in the hope of being able to escape the Taliban’s rules.
As international troops try to keep the airport secure while officials and Afghans are flown out, reports have emerged of women throwing their babies over the perimeter barbed wire, hoping British troops will take them out of the country.
One officer told the Independent: “The mothers were desperate, they were getting beaten by the Taliban. They shouted, “save my baby” and threw the babies at us.”
“Some of the babies fell on the barbed wire. It was awful what happened. By the end of the night, there wasn’t one man among us who was not crying,” he added.
A senior officer has told Sky News: “It was terrible, women were throwing their babies over the razor wire, asking the soldiers to take them, some got caught in the wire. I’m worried for my men, I’m counseling some, everyone cried last night.”
Thousands swarmed outside the airport fence. Video circulating on social media shows a large swathe of Afghans pushing up against the barbed wire that separates hope from an uncertain future under the Taliban government.
One user who shared the footage online said: “People are so desperate to escape the Taliban that they’re passing babies and kids forward to the gate at Kabul airport.”
Britain’s defense secretary said that his country is unable to evacuate unaccompanied children from Afghanistan when asked about footage that showed a young child being handed over a wall to Western soldiers.
Ben Wallace told Sky News when asked about the footage, “Obviously we cannot just take a minor on their own and it is difficult, but you will find, I think if you see in the footage, the child is taken – that will be because the family will be taken as well.”
Britain has pledged to take in 20,000 Afghan refugees, prioritizing women and children.
A total of 12 people have been killed in and around the airport in the Afghan capital, Taliban and NATO officials said. The deaths were caused either by gunshots or in stampedes.
The Taliban official urged people who are still crammed at the gates of the airport to go home if they did not have the legal right to travel.
“We don’t want to hurt anyone at the airport,” said the Taliban official.
At new checkpoints, Taliban fighters are tearing up some people’s travel documents, whipping others or turning them back at gunpoint.
Reports say the group has carried out beatings as a form of crowd control.
Six individuals were reported to be seriously injured when militants opened fire in the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. A journalist who raised the Afghan national flag in defiance was shot dead in cold blood by the jihadists, along with two other demonstrators.
In Kabul, the rebels beat back crowds eager to reach the capital’s airport, where thousands of people are being evacuated in US and UK airlifts. Dreadful footage shows children squeezed against the airport perimeter begging to be let in while adults tried to pass babies over the fence.
A chaotic image shows hundreds of Afghan nationals packed into US military transport planes as they taxied on the single runway, and the video showed more individuals running alongside the C-17 cargo plane, desperate to flee.
At least seven people died in the chaos, US officials said, including those who plunged to their deaths after trying to hold on to the military jet as it took off.
Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s spokesman claimed that the group had issued a blanket amnesty and would seek no revenge against their enemies. He also said women could work if it was in accordance with Islam.
A resident in Kabul told The Sun: “We want to believe that the Taliban have changed. But we fear this is just the beginning.”
Ashraf Ghani, who fled to the UAE, said he risked being castrated and hanged by the Taliban if he stayed, like Communist President Najibullah in 1994. The exiled president Ashraf Ghani was accused of stealing $168 million as he fled the country.
Ambassador Mohammad Zahir Aghbar, his man in Tajikistan, has accused him of betrayal and vowed to report him to Interpol.
British citizens who escaped say they feel “immensely lucky” to have fled as Afghan families still struggle to find a way out after the Taliban invasion.
Kitty Chevallier, 24, from Basingstoke, Hants, left Kabul thru a UK evacuation flight on Monday.
Kitty said: “As we drove there at 4 am, the runways were crowded with hundreds of Afghan families hoping to get out somehow. I’m very aware how immensely lucky I was to get helped out of the country.”
Everyone was hoping that the group will not try to shelter terrorists within its territory again. Their regime was overthrown 20 years ago after the World Trade Centre attacks because of Al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan.
The government has come under fire for not acting fast enough to save those in danger of reprisals by the Taliban, who took Kabul on Sunday.
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