Abbey Gate, Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan — Aug. 26, 2021
The crowd was packed shoulder to shoulder. Every man, woman, and child shouted and waved pieces of paper — their contents indiscernible — in frantic attempts to gain the attention of the U.S. Marines and Air Force special operators standing on the wall above them. The promise of a new life lay just beyond the Americans guarding the gates.
Sunset was less than an hour away, but the temperature exceeded 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and the air was filled with the stench of sweat and human excrement from the desperate souls who had been waiting outside for days with nowhere else to relieve themselves. There was no respite other than a dry wind periodically blowing from east to west, away from the gate and down the canal full of civilians struggling to shove their way to the front.
Most of the crowd had no reason to be there. They had no connection to the U.S. government and no legitimate claim to U.S. protection. Many had remained on the sidelines during the decades-long fight against the Taliban. But most of them posed no active threat, either. They knew that Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed government was no more and that Sharia law enforced by the Taliban was on the horizon, and they desperately wanted to find a way out. Some had shown up because they had sincerely believed social media posts saying that the Americans would take anyone who wanted to leave.
