I went to Kabul to train journalists – so why am I being left to choose which Afghans live and die?
TERRIFIED female university students are messaging me in tears from Afghanistan with desperate pleas for help.
Some say they’re going to kill themselves because they’d rather die than live as a prisoner under the Taliban.
But I’m having to make the heartbreaking decision to block the numbers of these poor children simply because I am having to spend all my time and energy getting people into the airport in Kabul.
I’m part of a group of international volunteers who are trying to get people onto evacuation lists, and we’ve been having to make traumatic decisions like this all week.
As a BBC radio reporter, I trained journalists in Afghanistan for five years in the early 2000s – I never thought I’d be making decisions about which Afghans live or die.
But us volunteers have to focus our attention on assisting people we might actually be able to help, even though it’s obscene that this work has been left to people like me at all.
None of us know how we’re ever going to get over what’s happening at the moment – the evacuation has been nothing short of a cruel, sick joke.
Women groped and beaten
This morning, there were two British families with their children standing outside the airport gates for several hours.
Even though they had Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) visas, they can’t get in.
These families are calling us for help even though they’re standing right by the soldiers.
There’s also been lots of aggression from US troops waving guns in people’s faces and shouting: “Move! Move! Move!”
They have to get through Taliban checkpoints and make it through an insane crush of people just to reach the no-man’s land area outside the airport.
We’ve heard so many stories of brutality just at the checkpoints.
Taliban have urinated on women and children to humiliate them. Women have been groped and assaulted. And of course people are being beaten too, arms and legs broken.
A British Army translator was so badly beaten he had to be carried onto the plane.
This morning, parents with a month-old baby were beaten at a checkpoint as they tried to make it to the terminal.
A British Army translator was so badly beaten he had to be carried onto the plane.
Nadene Ghouri
They were so traumatised by the attack that they’ve just given up and gone home.
We were speaking to another woman with two toddlers who is eight months pregnant.
She stood in that no man’s land for 15 hours straight and couldn’t get into the airport.
On the British side, there are British Afghans with British passports who are stuck there along with Afghan nationals who’ve been granted a visa.
The British nationals are being prioritised – they’re told to wave their passports in the air so soldiers can identify them.
But there’s so many people and there’s such a crush that even people with visas are struggling to make themselves known to soldiers on the wall.
It’s a very difficult situation for those troops too who have been asked to maintain order and security, but they’re also expected to deal with scared refugees and their paperwork.
That’s not fair. There’ve been calls all week for an immediate civilian presence at the airport to bring people in at the gate and process their documents.
‘Revenge’ murders of relatives
It’s not just Kabul where the crisis is going on – there’s been a lot of harassment and violence across the country.
There haven’t been massacres yet. But in Herat, Afghanistan’s third-largest city, and other districts, already there have been killings.
We’re hearing reports of the Taliban carrying out reprisals on the families of people on their watchlists.
I know one person has been murdered simply because his brother is a journalist.
Even for people who have got out, they now have to live knowing their families will pay the price for their escape.
The family of one man who got out has been warned their daughters could be taken as brides.
And the desperation for help from those seeking evacuation is growing.
Yesterday, I had someone WhatsApping me from the airport saying: “I used to be your translator, please help me,” but I didn’t know who they were.
I messaged him to say: “I’m so sorry, there’s nothing I can do”.
But he kept calling me while I was trying to assist those who I could help, so I eventually had to block this desperate man’s calls too.
We’ve all been forced to decide who will be left behind – and sometimes we’ll only have minutes to decide.
Some of the people who are most in need are also people I know have no chance of being evacuated.
Nadene Ghouri
There were various emergency visa lists being drawn which we could submit to.
I’ll get a message saying the Canadian government (for example) are gathering a list of women at risk and me and others can each put forward five names to go on a long list.
But while I had two people contacting me for help at the beginning of the week, I now have hundreds.
I’ve got women with tiny children in safe houses, someone about to give birth… So how can I choose who are the five most serious?
I had three calls like that yesterday – on the third I just started to shake and cry and thought to myself: “I just can’t do this anymore”.
Of course there’s no guarantee that the names you put forward will even make the shortlist anyway.
Some of the people who are most in need are also people I know have no chance of being evacuated.
There’s one woman I know who’s hiding in a basement with her eight children.
She has no money and nowhere to go, and her husband was murdered by Talibs three days ago.
Under Taliban rule, she won’t be able to go outside on her own. So how can she feed her children?
But the poor mum and her kids have got no chance of being evacuated because there’s just too many of them.
Hollow victories
Some people, thankfully, are getting out – a female news anchor I helped is currently in a quarantine hotel in the UK and a photographer made it to Spain.
They’ve sent me some heartwarming messages saying they don’t know how to thank me.
One said: “I’m in Europe with the Red Cross Committee – I have no words for how I can say thanks. May God bless you. I’m safe here.”
But it’s a small consolation to all of us who are doing this work who just feel so guilty.
Already some of us are showing signs of PTSD. I know I’m going to need some urgent counselling.
Already some of us are showing signs of PTSD.
Nadene Ghouri
We’ve managed to get a handful of people out – we call them confirmed wins – but none of us are taking much comfort from that.
We don’t know what’s going to happen next. Lots of people have given up on the hope of evacuation and are just trying to get across the border to Pakistan on foot.
Others are staying in their homes hoping the Taliban will allow them to leave on commercial flights further down the road.
But the calls for help aren’t going to stop – they’re going to get worse.
This is far from over.
