Try to get out again and we'll make you pay: Afghan translators reveal the nightmare of those left behind as some people approved for evacuation fail to make it through Taliban checkpoints... with one held at gunpoint and another beaten and turned back
Exhausted, frustrated and crushed by the mass of people desperate to reach Kabul airport, ex-military translators and their families told of their failed bids to escape yesterday.
Some approved for evacuation failed to make it through Taliban checkpoints – one held at gunpoint and photographed, another beaten and turned back.
Others complained of spending more than 60 hours in the crush of people where at least seven died and dozens were carried away unconscious.
Dozens of those who risked their lives as interpreters beside UK troops were said to have been notified for flights over the weekend but some were too scared to pass Taliban checkpoints. Pictured, former translator Salim and his wife Brekhna
Those that did make it spoke of the kindness of paratroopers manning the gates, which at times had to be closed. British soldiers gave food, water and even clothes to those in need. Women tried passing their children above their heads to soldiers to escape the crush.
The Taliban had fired in the air and used batons to force crowds to form orderly queues outside the airport so for the first time in a week long lines of people snaked back towards the city.
Dozens of those who risked their lives as interpreters beside UK troops were said to have been notified for flights over the weekend but some were too scared to pass Taliban checkpoints.
One 48-year-old, known by Helmand soldiers as MS, fell asleep in a taxi with his family after waiting for hours at the airport. He woke to a Taliban fighter demanding to see his papers.
When they saw he had a British visa in his passport, they became angry branding him ‘a bloody interpreter...spy of the infidel’.
‘They put the muzzle of the gun to my chest and photographed me three times, once in front and once from each side and warned it was being sent to all airport checkpoints and if ever I tried to go to there again I would be separated from my family and taken away,’ MS said from his Kabul hideout.
‘I was sitting in the front next to the driver, my seven-year-old daughter was crying and asking the man with the gun “please do not fire on my daddy, please don’t shoot”,’ MS said.
‘My wife was crying too and we were all frightened, people are being killed for nothing. They took my passport and took the picture (out) and my wife pleaded for it to be given back, they did as she asked with the warning never to try to approach the airport again.
‘I don’t know what to do, we need to escape but it is very dangerous for me now.’ A member of the Hazara ethnic minority, he said he told British officials about the incident but despite being summoned again yesterday he was too scared to risk the Taliban checkpoints.
‘We are so afraid, every time there is a knock on the door we wonder if it is the Taliban, my daughter hugs on to me and says not to answer. Everyone thinks they are coming for me. It is too big a risk to go to the airport.’
Wazir, 30, a father of five, was another ex-interpreter to feel the anger of the Taliban.
Some approved for evacuation failed to make it through Taliban checkpoints – one held at gunpoint and photographed, another beaten and turned back
‘We had waited near the airport to be called forward for a flight and were told to move,’ Wazir, who spent four years on the frontline, said. ‘I tried to explain we had nowhere to go and would fly soon but they began to strike me with a stick, they hit other people too.’
Despite the beating, he said he was determined to try again to reach the rendezvous point. ‘We must escape for a new life,’ he said, ‘I will try again even if they beat me.’
Ahmad, 31, an ex-interpreter who has twice been turned back at the airport, called on Britain to organise ‘pop-up’ rendezvous points in Kabul that only those chosen for specific flights would be told of.
The US has a similar system using helicopters but there are grave security concerns because they are highly vulnerable. ‘We know the clock is ticking to when the airport will close,’ Ahmad said. ‘I am a clear target and collection centres would save so much anguish.’
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