DESPAIR... AND DESPERATION
IN SCENES that continue to shock the world, crying babies are being handed to soldiers as terrified families beg troops to take them to safety.
Witnesses spoke of terrified children being trampled outside Kabul’s airport, beaten by Taliban fighters, whipped and even shot at as their families tried to flee the Islamic fanatics ruling Afghanistan by fear.
Horrific videos showed thousands of Afghans between Taliban checkpoints and a US-imposed ring of steel around Kabul main airport surging towards the runways.
In a final, desperate bid to get their children to safety, mothers held up their babies so they could be taken by troops at the airport.
In the main picture above, taken from a video, a US marine grabs a child lifted up by pleading parents. Marine Corps spokesman Major Jim Stenger said yesterday: “The baby seen in the video was taken to a medical treatment facility on site and cared for by medical professionals. The baby was reunited with their father and is safe at the airport.”
Atrocities
Another US serviceman caught a baby thrown over the wall in his arms. He left the safety of the airport to return the child to its mother.
A British soldier who completed two tours of Helmand province said the trauma of this experience in Kabul far outweighed that.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said Britain could not fly unaccompanied children out of Afghanistan.
Paratroopers from the 16th Air Assault Brigade have the heartbreaking task of trying to find the mothers outside to reunite them with their children.
Meanwhile, fresh details of Taliban atrocities emerged yesterday, including a woman set on fire for poor cooking.
Militants hunting a German editor for broadcaster Deutsche Welle shot dead a member of his family.
Deutsche Welle director general Peter Limbourg described the killing as “inconceivably tragic”. He added: “It is evident that the Taliban are already carrying out organised searches for journalists in Kabul and the provinces.”
In the south-eastern Ghazni province, the Taliban “massacred” and tortured several members of
the persecuted minority Hazara community, Amnesty International has reported.
A student there said she would rather kill herself than be raped or murdered by the fanatics.
She said: “Everything, everything that I dreamed of, everything that I ever worked for, my dignity, my pride, even my existence as a girl, my life – they are all in danger. I’ve been talking to my friends. This is what all of us are planning to do. Death is better than being taken by them. We are all scared.”
In Kabul, the
Taliban has been ransacking homes, sometimes beating, harassing and kidnapping residents and confiscating personal documents and mobile phones, locals said. They are targeting former government employees, ex-soldiers, police and those who worked with foreign governments and organisations. Former judge Najla Ayoubi of Every Woman Treaty, which campaigns to end violence against women, said she had to “flee for my life”. Ms Ayoubi said one woman was “put on fire yesterday because she was accused of bad cooking for Taliban fighters” in the north of the country.
She added: “Also there are so many young women being shipped into neighbouring countries in coffins to be used as sex slaves.
“They also force families to marry their young daughters to Taliban fighters.Where is the promise that women should be going to work, when we are seeing all of these atrocities.”
Ms Ayoubi said she was in a “powerful position” the day before the Taliban took power, then became “nothing in the society”.
She had to be accompanied by her neighbour’s four-year-old son to the grocery shop, showing he had more value than her.
Amnesty International warned the brutal killings were likely to represent a “tiny fraction of the total death toll inflicted by the Taliban to date”.
Militants have cut mobile phone service in many captured areas.
Wahed Qaraman, 45, was taken from his house and had his legs and arms broken, hair pulled out and his face beaten with a blunt object, before he was shot.
Strangled
Jaffar Rahimi, 63, accused of working for the Afghan government after money was found in his pocket, was strangled with his own scarf. People who buried him told Amnesty his body was covered in bruises and his arm muscles had been carved off.
Sayed Abdul Hakim, 40, was beaten with sticks and rifle butts, bound and shot four times by
Taliban fighters. His body was dumped in a nearby creek. A witness who was forced to dig a grave after the killing said: “We asked the Taliban why they did this and they told us, ‘When it is the time of conflict, everyone dies. It doesn’t matter if you have guns or not. It is the time of war.’ ”
Several residents said they had destroyed documents linking them to the former Afghan government or foreign entities.
Tamim, a Kabul-based journalist who is in hiding with his family, said: “The Taliban haven’t changed. Why do you think so many Afghans are desperately trying to leave?
“We are in a lot of danger. We have to be careful otherwise they will target our families. There are no flights available and I don’t have a visa. I don’t know what will happen to me.”