Afghanistan: Ordinary People Betrayed by the West

Teacher Shirin Tabrik spent five days and nights in front of Kabul airport trying to get on a flight from Afghanistan. Humiliated and enraged by the torture she endured, she gave up and plans to return to her village to start a new life under the Taliban.

Midwife Shagufta Dastakgir also tried but failed to escape. And she says she has lost faith in the West's commitment to helping Afghanistan and is returning home.

Their stories reflect the harsh reality of many Afghans who want to leave the country now that the Islamist militant movement has returned to power, writes Reuters.

Thousands of people were evacuated, but there are many more who could not get out.

Tabrik, the second wife of a former Afghan government official who fled to Pakistan in February, is furious at what she sees as the United States' failure to do more to evacuate people since the Taliban seized Kabul on August 15.

Some Afghans fear Taliban retaliation against those associated with the ousted Western-backed administration.

Women feel exposed: when the group was last in power, it banned them from working, girls from school and brutally enforced its version of Sharia law.

In recent days, the Taliban have promised to respect human rights and allow women to work under sharia law, but what that means in practice is still unclear.

Scenes of chaos outside the airport dominated news around the world. On Thursday, at least 85 people were killed in a suicide attack by the Islamic State that was warned by Western countries. More were killed in the shooting and stampede that followed.

"I would rather live under the new regime than to be treated like trash by foreigners," Tabrik (43) told Reuters, after almost a week of living in misery and fear with her husband's first wife and three children.

"The Americans have insulted every Afghan. "I come from a respectable family ... but because I lived on the street for 5 nights, I felt like I was begging people who don't respect women and children," she told Reuters hours before the bombing.

The prospect of an ultra-radical offshoot of the Islamic State disrupting the Taliban's attempts to establish power in the country has only heightened the foreboding in Afghanistan.

Washington agreed with the Taliban to withdraw all its troops from Afghanistan by August 31. President Joe Biden is the target of fierce criticism both in the West and in Afghanistan for not establishing a better evacuation plan.

US officials at Kabul airport say they have been working around the clock to transport people, adding that evacuating thousands of Afghan personnel along with foreigners was a complex task.

A total of 15 people have been evacuated from Kabul since August 105.000, the White House announced.

The US military will prioritize the withdrawal of troops and military equipment in the final days before the deadline, a US security official stationed at Kabul airport told Reuters.

The Taliban are trying to convince Afghans and the West that they will respect human rights and not seek revenge.

However, reports from the field of abuses and threats undermine trust. Tabrik said she has all the documents needed to travel to Pakistan, but it seems there are one set of rules for foreigners trying to escape Kabul and another for Afghans.

"No one tried to stop any foreigner... I have all the documents to travel, and why is America preventing me from leaving? Who are they to stop anyone?”

Although some Afghans with dual citizenship were detained, it appears that Westerners were not prevented from arriving at the airport.

Taliban officials have urged Afghans not to leave, saying they need them to help run the country so it can prosper in the future. Some employees of the outgoing government have returned to work, some are in hiding.

Losing hope of leaving Afghanistan by the end of August, Tabrik decided to stay. Others are waiting for a better opportunity to leave the country if the chaos subsides.

"I decided to move to our house in the countryside in Fariab," she said, referring to the northern province. “I think we will live a better life there. We have a farm there where we grow wheat and some fruit. We have a well. We don't need anything more... All Americans can go, and I hope I never see any more in my country.”

I admired the Germans

Midwife Dastakgir (29) is from Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. She speaks English and German fluently, and she worked for a German NGO.

She told Reuters that she, along with more than 20 Afghan associates, had been assured by German embassy officials as early as 2020 that they would be transferred to Germany if the security situation worsened.

Then the pandemic hit and the office of this NGO was closed. As Dastakgir continued to work on a small number of projects, she continued to receive a salary.

Since July 23, when the situation worsened, she called and sent dozens of emails to the German embassy and the NGO where she worked, asking them to tell her what was going on.

When she received no response, her father and cousin drove her to Kabul, where she hoped to board a flight out of the country. The journey was fraught with risk, as Taliban patrols stopped them every now and then.

"We told them we were going to visit relatives in Kabul," she said.

She told Reuters that she spent four days and three nights in chaos around the airport.

"I'm coming back to Mazar soon," she said. “Right now I'm not angry because I'm tired. You know, I always admired the Germans... but now I see that the foreign powers are actually indifferent."

A German diplomatic source told Reuters that "their possibilities to grant access to the airport are very limited due to the chaotic situation." Germany suspended evacuation flights on Thursday. Until then, their troops had evacuated 5.347 people, including more than 4.100 Afghans.