With emergency evacuation operations underway in Kabul, Defense One, a news website covering US security and defence published a striking image showing a sea of Afghans crammed against each other in a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III as they flee Taliban rule.
As per US defence officials, the passengers in the image were safely evacuated from Kabul to Qatar on Sunday, 15 August.
In the photo, the floor of the military aircraft is covered with people, most of of them men, huddled together, carrying almost no belongings with them.
The aircraft, which was reported to have around 640 Afghans on board, also carried babies, children, and women. This is the highest number of passengers carried by this Globemaster.
According to the report by Defense One, the military vehicle was not prepared to take on such a large load, but panicked as Afghans who had been cleared to evacuate, pulled themselves onto the C-17’s half-open ramp.
This was one of the several flights that took off with hundreds of refugees on board. 'Some of the others may have had an even larger load than 640,' an official told Defense One.
As US president Joe Biden withdraws its troops from Afghanistan after two decades of war, the country has hurtled towards an escalating humanitarian crisis after the Afghan government disintegrated at the hands of Taliban.
President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and conceded that the military organisation had won the war after Taliban insurgents surrounded and captured Kabul.
Visuals of hundreds of desperate Afghans struggling to enter aircrafts to leave the war-torn nation, as well as horrific videos showing people falling to their deaths after they clung on to an aircraft as it took off had surfaced online on Monday, 16 August.
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