THE FALL OF AFGHANISTAN
AS THE TALIBAN SEIZES CONTROL OF THE NATION, THOUSANDS MAKE A DESPERATE BID TO ESCAPE INCLUDING AUSTRALIANS
As her Afghan village became a battleground between the Taliban and government forces last month, Fatima, a 22-year-old who is seven months’ pregnant, desperately sought refuge in her home. As bullets pelted the walls, Fatima not only feared for her life and the life of her unborn child, she was terrified of a darker fate.
“We had heard of cases where the Taliban would kill young men and sexually abuse girls and young women of the family,” Fatima told Afghanistan’s Rukhshana Media. “When they finally came to our village, they wanted to take a young girl with them, but she jumped from the roof of her house and ended her life.”
On August 15, that military organisation brought its dreaded brand of terror to Kabul, seizing control of the capital amid the US withdrawal of troops from the war-torn land. Afghan President Ashraf
Ghani had fled the country earlier that Sunday, and within hours gun-toting insurgents were parading around his offices.
By the next day, Kabul’s airport was a scene of chaos and human tragedy as Afghans desperately tried to board planes in a bid to escape the Taliban’s repressive rule. US soldiers fired warning shots over the crowd while people clung to the outside of a US Air Force transport aircraft. Several people plunged to their deaths as it took off. “The world is following events in
Afghanistan with a heavy heart and deep disquiet about what lies ahead,” said UN Secretary- General António Guterres.
Experts now believe the Taliban, which upholds Sharia, or Islamic law, and ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, will declare the country the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and return it to its old ways: public executions (for crimes including adultery), amputations (for theft), and the brutal oppression of women and girls.
“It will look like a pariah state,” Dr Srinjoy Bose, senior lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of New South Wales, tells WHO. “Human rights will be sacrificed, particularly those of women. All the gains of the past 20 years will be undone.” Among those fearing that future were Australian citizens, who were desperately looking for a way out.
In a statement, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the government’s priority was “to ensure the safety of its citizens. We have over 130 Australians in Afghanistan, working in the UN, NGOs, and elsewhere, and we are working to bring them home.”
But for some, the government’s actions are too little, too late (see box below also), considering the US announced in April it would withdraw its forces, and Australia had already removed its troops and closed its Kabul embassy by July. Those seeking protection include Afghans who had been working with Australian forces, and who could now be targeted by the Taliban.
“This administration should have planned for contingencies in ensuring the security of people at risk,” says Dr Bose.
At press time, the US reportedly remained in control of Kabul airport, and US President Joe Biden was deploying more troops to provide aid. Biden, who is facing criticism for what many experts are calling a “botched” withdrawal, stood by his decision to remove US troops.
“American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves,” he said.
Meanwhile, thousands of Afghans who fled the fighting in rural areas, and sought haven in Kabul, have been left homeless and hungry in the city’s parks. “I got here this morning and have had nothing to eat,” Fawzia Karimi, an Afghan mother, told the Associated Press. “Should I leave my children hungry, under a burning sun?”
At another park, Zarmina Takhari said she had fled her village after 12 of her relatives were killed. “We loaded a [pick-up truck] with dead bodies,” she explained. “The Taliban have no mercy.” Teenager Nasir Ahmed told AP of his desperate plight. “I missed the last year of school because of COVID-19 and this year because of war,” he said. “I don’t see any future for myself.”
The retreat of western troops and the advance of the Taliban leaves a country in despair and a world on edge. “We watch in complete shock as [the] Taliban takes control of Afghanistan,” tweeted human rights activist Malala Yousafzai, 24, who was 15 and a student in Pakistan when a masked Taliban gunman boarded her school bus and shot her in the face.
Said the World Food Programme’s Thomson Phiri: “We fear the worst is yet to come. The situation has all the hallmarks of a humanitarian catastrophe.”
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