Women in the square in Kabul. The drama of mothers at the airport

by Marzio Pelù

KABUL – Women are the real protagonists. Those who lead the anti-Taliban processions in the streets of Kabul, waving the Afghan flag, and those who a few kilometers away, in the airport of the capital of the new Islamic Emirate, pass their youngest children over the barbed wire to foreign soldiers: “Take them away with you”. 

These are dramatic hours in Afghanistan: the initial “reassurances” of the Taliban – “we have changed”, “we will not harm anyone” – seem to be denied by the videos that have been circulating on social networks for the past three days. Like the one posted by Matt Zeller on Twitter (here below), where you see mothers passing their children to soldiers.

“It was horrible, the women threw their children over the barbed wire” at the airport “asking the soldiers to pick them up”, a senior Afghan official told Skynews, adding that some of the children “got entangled in the barbed wire”.

The same strength of the desperation of those mothers animated the other women, also Afghan, who yesterday led the improvised procession to Kabul to celebrate the 122nd anniversary of Afghanistan’s independence: shouting “Long live Afghanistan. our national flag is our identity “, hundreds of people walked the streets of the capital and, at the head of the procession, there were women with burqas, wrapped in the national flag that has become the symbol of the challenge to the Islamic Emirate (here below, the video from the Twitter profile of the filmmaker Jordan Bryon).

An anniversary, that of independence, paradoxically also celebrated by the Taliban who declared victory over the United States, “a powerful and arrogant force”. And since the celebration recalls the Rawalpindi treaty that marked the end of British colonial rule in 1919, the Taliban have claimed to have defeated “three arrogant empires”: British, Soviet and American. But it is a “party” that, instead of uniting, divides a country that is in fact in the midst of a civil war.

Today, the number of dead people at Kabul airport rose to 12 since Sunday, when the airport was stormed by Afghans and foreigners terrified of the entry of the Taliban into the capital. And more dead and wounded in Asadabad and Jalalabad where the Taliban opened fire on the crowd during the independence celebrations. In Asadabad, in eastern Afghanistan, at least 4 dead and 8 injured. It is still unclear whether the deaths were caused by the bullets of the fundamentalists or by the stampede caused by the gunshots. And injured, at least 2, a man and a boy, in Jalalabad, again for the same situation, reports Al Jazeera, also reporting that in Khost the fundamentalists have imposed a curfew to prevent the population from protesting against them.

Meanwhile, the exodus continues, even to Italy. Today a plane with 202 Afghans on board landed at Fiumicino airport, coming from Kabul. In total, since last Sunday, over 8,500 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan through the Kabul airport: as reported by the BBC, so far the United States has transported the largest number of people, over 5,200, of which 2,000 in the last 24 hours. The United Kingdom follows with 1,200 people (including Afghan citizens) and Germany with 900 people (including 100 Afghans).

The great escape from Kabul therefore does not stop: thousands of Afghans in danger have boarded the airplanes to the West, take-offs have taken place throughout the day, today, and will continue until at least the end of the month. Or at least as long as the Taliban will allow it.