DNA Special: First ground report from inside the Kabul Airport

Written By DNA Web Team | Updated: Aug 25, 2021, 06:39 AM IST

Zee News is the only channel in the country that went inside Kabul airport and saw how people are being evacuated from there.

Kabul Airport is currently the most dangerous place in the world and the biggest Flash Point where thousands of lives are at stake at this time. These people of Afghanistan are now desperate to be free and they are all sitting around Kabul airport hoping that maybe they will get lucky and be able to run out of the country. Zee Media is the first news channel in India that managed to enter the Kabul airport.

Zee News is the only channel in the country that went inside Kabul airport and saw how people are being evacuated from there.

You can divide Kabul airport into two parts - 30 per cent of it is from where ordinary people go out of Afghanistan and 70 per cent is under the control of the armies of America and NATO countries. At present, people trapped in Kabul are being evacuated from this part and the rest of the airport is closed.

Our correspondent Anas Mallick arrived inside Kabul airport from this army-controlled part. It was night when our team reached there but the work of evacuating people was going on. At that time, about 5,000 people were present inside Kabul Airport and on the runway. Large cargo planes of air forces of different countries were present to take them out. That is, the work of evacuating people is going on day and night.

In the last 24 hours, about 18,000 people have been evacuated from Kabul and since August 15 in total, 30,000 people have left Afghanistan.

A phone rang in the hotel room where our team was staying in Kabul. The caller told us that we have got permission to go inside Kabul airport. But for this, we had to first reach the Embassy of Qatar because of the closeness with the Taliban, only the embassies of Qatar and Pakistan are able to evacuate people from here on a regular basis.

After this, Anas Malik, correspondent of Zee News and WION, started moving towards Kabul airport in a car. First, we passed through a check post of Talibanis and then we encountered American soldiers. Then our team reached inside that Kabul airport, 70 per cent of which is under the control of America and NATO countries. Inside the airport, there was no screaming like outside. On both sides of the runway, cargo aircraft of Air Forces of different countries were present whose loud noise coming from the engine was tearing the silence of the airport.

The light was not much but the darkness seemed to lighten in front of the darkness of the Taliban's atrocities. There were a large number of people present on the runway who wanted to get out of Afghanistan by any means. These people were among those fortunate enough to be allowed inside the airport.

At the airport, about 5,000 people were waiting to board these planes. We were present on the runway of Kabul airport for the last three hours. We could see the little light of the sun. At the same time, was new dawn about to come in the lives of the 5000 people present at the airport?

People want to board the planes flying from this airport by any means. Some people are even ready to put their lives in danger and hang them from the plane. Around 20 Afghan civilians have been killed in the past week while trying to enter the airport and catch the plane.

To know the truth of this tragedy, the team of Zee News and WION spent about 12 hours at Kabul airport. We showed you how people are taken out of Kabul at night. But the pain of leaving their country can be clearly seen on the faces of the people leaving here in the light of day. 

Our team was present on the runway of Kabul airport since night. Thousands of people were ready to board planes from different countries. The children shook hands for the last time and said goodbye to their country. The mothers were also holding the hands of the children and were also making arrangements for their food and drink. The men were checking for the last time what they had brought with them from home.

Zee News is the first such channel in the country which boarded the Qatar Air Force plane carrying refugees from here and talked to the people aboard this plane who were forced to become refugees because of their selfish leaders.

All these people on board this plane are playing a gamble as refugees because, after 40 days, it will be decided whether these people will go to the US from Qatar's capital Doha and start a new life or return to Afghanistan.

There are soldiers from America and NATO countries all over the Kabul airport and its runway who are searching every single person who boarded the plane because if there was even a slight mistake and a terrorist boarded the plane, the whole game will change.

The situation is worse outside the airport where there are about 25 to 30 thousand people waiting to go inside. On one side of the airport wall, there is hope and happiness, on the other side, there is helplessness and misery. The Taliban has given these people a deadline till August 31 to get out. Now they are afraid that if they do not leave Kabul in 6 days, then the Taliban will not allow them to stay alive. These people are pleading with the foreign soldiers guarding the airport to let them in but they are not listening. Many of these are also Afghan citizens who have worked for the governments of countries like America for many years. But when these people reached the airport, they were stopped outside.

What Zee News and WION team saw outside Kabul airport was intimidating. People waving documents in their hands, people getting scolded and beaten by American and NATO soldiers.

As soon as we reached here, we felt as if America's lie had been caught because many of the people standing outside the airport were those who had worked for the US government for years but now even they are not being allowed to enter. The people of Afghanistan who once used to be useful to American soldiers, today, these soldiers are making fun of those same people.

As time passes, the hopes of these people are getting shattered. Those who have reached inside the airport are being put in planes like luggage and those who are outside are being treated like animals, but countries like America, Britain and Germany are worried about their dogs and liquor which these countries want to take with them even before the refugees.