Afghanistan Crisis: Day after the Taliban claimed control over the Afghan capital, chaos erupted at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport as scores of nationals mobbed the tarmac to board the last few flights leaving the war-torn country. Desperate videos and images which are being circulated on social media showed a packed aircraft surrounded by hundreds of people jostling to climb the ladder to get inside the plane.

Watch the videos here: 

Afghanistan stares at an uncertain future as President Ashraf Ghani left the country just before Kabul fell into the hands of the Taliban.  Senior Air India officials said the Afghanistan airspace has been declared “uncontrolled” by the Kabul airport on Monday and transit flights have been asked to avoid the airspace.

Earlier in the day, US forces fired in the air at Kabul’s airport to bring the situation under control. “The crowd was out of control. The firing was only done to defuse the chaos,” the official told Reuters.

The US has deployed early 6,000 troops to facilitate the safe departure of the American and allied personnel from Afghanistan via civilian and military flights.  In a joint statement, the US Department of State and Department of Defence said the US will be transferring thousands of American citizens as well as locally employed staff of the US mission in Kabul and their families over the coming days.

Approximately 4,000 US Embassy staff members are still to fly out of the country, including US citizens and Afghan nationals who work for the embassy.