'Help, Taliban Are Coming': Video Shows Afghan Women Pleading To US Troops In Kabul

Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport has been, in recent days, flooded with Afghans, desperate to leave their country following the return to power of the Taliban regime.

Videos have emerged from the airport of people literally clinging to a departing aircraft of the US Air Force, ending with people seen falling off the aircraft as it reaches mid-air.

Now, another video has emerged from the airport. It has been shared by the UK's Daily Mail and shows a group of Afghan women pleading with the US troops, guarding the airport's entrance gate, to let them in.

Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters

"Help me, please. Help me"

"Help me, please. Help me. The Taliban are coming for me," the women scream in their local language as they are separated from the guards by a heavily fortified gate.

The women were begging US soldiers as unconfirmed reports spread across Afghanistan that the US forces were at the Kabul airport to evacuate people from the war-torn country in a bid to save them from the Taliban rule.

In the video, the woman wept as she extended her hand through a fence covered in razor wire towards US troops who remained on the other side of the fence.

Afghan families behind the barbed wires of Kabul airport, begging soldiers to let them in. "Help us, the Taliban are coming for us," the woman cries.#Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/aCe6vgmshi

¡ª Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) August 18, 2021

The video surfaced at a time when the US has rushed in troops, transport planes and commanders to secure the airport, and ramped up an airlift capable of ferrying between 5,000 and 9,000 people a day.

50,000 gathered at the airport

According to the Daily Mail's report, as many as 50,000 people gathered at the airport on Wednesday in a bid to leave their homeland to a safer location. Evacuation flights are reported to be leaving with only 50% passengers, despite several countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, "vowing to take thousands of Afghan refugees each." The report further states that most people arriving at the airport do not have travel documents.

A report by Sky News narrated how the daily experience of standing guard against the Taliban and the thousands of Afghans pleading for help had been haunting the troops.

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A senior British army official told the reporter how his soldiers were crying at night after seeing women throwing their children over the barbed wires, asking them to catch the babies on the other side and take them to a safer place.

Afghanistan's plunge into crisis

Afghanistan plunged into crisis on August 15, as the Taliban captured Kabul, thus seizing power for the first time since 2001, when it was driven away by the US-led troops who arrived in the country following the 9/11 attacks.

The group's surge towards the capital city, and eventual victory, was driven by the departure from Afghanistan of American troops, as directed by US president Joe Biden in April.

AP

Earlier, videos showing three Afghan men falling off a plane and mothers throwing babies over barbed wire jolted the conscience of the world.

The new video shows the desperation among people particularly women after the Taliban declared their rule over Afghanistan. They were the most affected citizens of Afghanistan when the Taliban ruled the last time during 1996-2001.