The road to Kabul airport crowded, chaotic and punctuated by regular gunfire has proved impassable to dozens of Australian citizens and visa-holders trying to reach military evacuation flights out of Afghanistan.
On Thursday afternoon, the Australian government issued a public message to Australian citizens and visa-holders in the Afghan capital to travel to Kabul airport to board an evacuation flight out of the country that has fallen to the Taliban.
That group includes a number of former interpreters who served alongside Australian forces, and whose service in Australian uniform has made them particular targets for Taliban retribution.
But despite Taliban assurances that those seeking to leave the country would be granted “safe passage”, militant fighters blocked the gates to the airport, letting few through, and beating and shooting at some who tried to pass.
Many of those seeking a flight out of Afghanistan got to within a few hundred metres of the plane that could take them out, only to be pushed back by armed Taliban.
With the Taliban now in almost total control of Afghanistan – the Panjshir Valley the notable exception – and in charge of all of the country’s land borders, Kabul’s airport is the only practicable way out of the country.
While US forces have secured Kabul airfield itself – after deadly mayhem on the tarmac following the fall of Kabul the Taliban control checkpoints on all the roads leading to the airport.
9Naija 