I’m so lucky but fearful for others
BRITONS who managed to flee Afghanistan have said they feel “immensely lucky” to have escaped but fearful for those still there.
Charity worker Kitty Chevallier left Kabul via a UK evacuation flight on Monday and shared images of the packed RAF cargo plan.
The 24-year-old from Basingstoke, Hampshire, had worked there since September 2020 with UK-registered Afghanaid.
She said: “As we drove [to the plane] at 4am, 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.”
“One of the strangest moments was getting on the plane, not knowing when we’d be able to come back or what the city would look and feel like when we did.”
Kitty praised the handling of her evacuation, noting the soldiers who processed her were “patient, helpful and reassuring”. She is still
in contact with friends and colleagues stranded in the nation, which she called “nerve-wracking”.
She added: “Most of them have now been given the opportunity to leave on a UN flight tomorrow.
“The real tragedy is being in touch with Afghan colleagues and friends, for whom the chances of leaving the country are far, far smaller, and who have so much more to lose.”
Kitty called on the government to increase aid going to the country rather than cut it, and said criteria that dictates who may enter Britain must be expanded “to include aid workers and civil society activists, especially women”.
Jack, an Afghan-born 27-year-old from Birmingham, whose name has been changed to protect his family still in Afghanistan, left this week.
He said: “I was sad departing my native country the way I had to.
“[We] waited in a building around 12 hours before being transported to the airport...it was difficult.”