Kabul a ‘city of fear’: Afghans seek to flee but losing hope

On Saturday morning, a former interpreter for a US company in Kabul plunged into a mass of humanity outside a gate at the Kabul airport with her family in tow. Even as she was jostled and elbowed by people in the throng, she pushed ahead, desperate to secure a flight out of the country for everyone accompanying her - her husband, 2-year-old daughter, disabled parents, three sisters and a cousin. Then the crowd surged. The entire family was slammed to the ground. People trampled them where they lay, the woman recalled just hours later. She remembered someone smashing her cellphone and someone else kicking her in the head. She could not breathe, so she tried to tear off her abaya, a robelike dress. As she struggled to her feet, she said, she searched for her toddler. The girl was dead, trampled to death by the mob. "I felt pure terror," she said in a telephone interview from Kabul. "I couldn't save her."
A 39-year-old former interpreter for the US military and Western aid groups was hiding on Saturday inside a home in Kabul with his wife and two children. He said the Taliban had telephoned, telling him, "Face the consequences - we will kill you." The interpreter, whose identity was shielded like others in this article for safety concerns, said he had given up trying to secure a flight after a harrowing and ultimately futile attempt to force his way past Taliban gunmen. "I'm losing hope," he said by telephone. "I think maybe I will have to accept the consequences." Another former interpreter for the US military was also in hiding. He, too, said he had abandoned any hope of getting a flight for him, his wife and young son after two terrifying forays to the airport. "I've lost trust in the US government, which keeps saying, 'We will evacuate our allies.' Evacuation is impossible."
A female Afghan journalist in Kabul said she finally ventured outside after hiding indoors since last Sunday. Trying to obey randomly enforced Taliban strictures on women, she wore a full-body abaya. "It was so heavy, it made me feel sick," she said. And in the street, she said, "there is no music, nothing. All you hear is the Taliban talking on TVs and radios." She said her sister-in-law appeared in front of male family members with her hair uncovered. Her brother-in-law gave her a vicious kick and said, "Put your bloody scarf on!"
Also in hiding was a former interior ministry police officer who had seen Taliban ransack the ministry, combing through paperwork that contained information about employees. "Kabul has become a city of fear," he said.