Paris: When Thousands of Afghans hope to escape from the entry Taliban regime to be cut from Kabul Airport last month, many started looking for alternative ways to escape.
Hundreds of people make a daring dashboard for the airport in Mazar-I-Sharif – a city around 300 kilometers (185 miles) to the north on the route that has been interspersed with the Taliban examination post.
Some are managed by crowdfunded charter planes by individuals and businesses, but many others are still waiting for permission.
“A few hundred more are waiting at Mazar-i-Sharif,” said the name Vanier, from Sayara’s development and research company, who had secured private funds for two A340 Airbus passenger jets for 680 Afghanistan.
“They are people from aid institutions, people who work for foreign companies and journalists – including a woman’s reporter who suffers from murder efforts,” he added.
Vanier, who managed to help 51 Afghan vessels and their families from Kabul, said the detention often came from Washington.
“It’s our impression that, if there is strong support from American authorities, the Taliban will be accommodating,” Vanier said.
State Secretary Antony Blinken said the United States worked all the time to facilitate flights, but had limited on-ground resources.
“We have explained to the Taliban – that this charter must be able to depart,” he said on Wednesday.
He said the United States also urged the Taliban to reopen Kabul airport for civilians so they wanted to leave Afghanistan safely.
Marina Legree, from the rights group of Ascent Athletics, was trying to evacuate a group of Afghan young women and their families.
“Nothing moves,” he said.
“We feel sold out.” Eric Montalvo, a former soldier and US lawyer involved in an evacuation effort from Mazar-I-Sharif, accused the United States to fail to provide the documents needed to leave.
The two-week airlift operation from Kabul saw more than 123,000 foreign nationals and Afghans evacuated, before the last US army flew ahead of the August 31 deadline to end their 20-year war.
Farid Ahmadi is scheduled to fly out on August 26 but hours before his flight, a suicide bomber of Islamic countries exploded outside the airport, killing many people.
In the middle of the night, Ahmadi got a call that told him to go to Mazar-I-Sharif instead.
He gathered his colleagues and their families, and together crowded to the bus for a nine hour trip.
The Taliban army stopped the bus several times on his slow journey.
“We tell them that we will go to the wedding,” Ahmadi said.
“All families are scared.
Children don’t talk, they don’t play.” Arriving at Mazar-i-Sharif, they lay for three days.
Then, just a few hours before the last US army left Afghanistan, the Ahmadi group got a green light, and their plane took off.
Behind the Mazar-i-Sharif flight placed an extraordinary business, sometimes going down to coordination only a handful of individuals determined.
“We have friends, former coworkers, risky people, who ask for our help – but they are not in the embassy list,” said Clemence Qint from Magenta, a consulting company that gave governance advice.
“So we started working on our own evacuation.” Facebook Chartered One to AirLift employees, and others need help.
“In the process of helping Facebook employees and closing partners to leave Afghanistan, we join efforts to help a group of journalists and their families who are in great danger,” said the social media giant in a statement.
Mexico said he would welcome 175 Afghans, including more than 100 of communication groups that had Tolo News, who planned to proceed to the United States.
“We spent three days telling each other that the flight would go …
Then there was a bureaucratic barrier, an administrative barrier, or because someone did not pick up their phone,” Qint said.
Farid Ahmadi described relief when the aircraft’s wheel finally took off from Mazar-I-Sharif.
“Everyone cries,” he said.
“No one can believe we have done it.”
Afghan aircraft still waiting for flights to escape from the Taliban
