US officials say seven people have died at Kabul airport, including some who fell from a departing American transport plane. Meanwhile, flights out of the Afghan capital have been interrupted by crowds on the runway.
The death toll was reported by the Associated Press on Monday, citing American officials. Throughout Sunday night, US troops brought in to protect the evacuation of American diplomats and workers struggled to keep hordes of desperate Afghans off the runway at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai Airport, now the only lifeline between Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and the outside world.
Some of the dead had clung to a US military transport plane as it took off, but fell to their deaths shortly after takeoff. Their horrifying plunge to the ground below was captured on camera, with the footage shared on social media.
Commercial flights out of Kabul were suspended on Sunday, but droves of desperate Afghans crowded onto the airport’s single runway regardless, in a last-ditch bid to catch a flight out of the Afghan capital. American troops struggled to hold back the crowds overnight, and reports surfaced of gunfire and stampeding breaking out.
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