British troops in Kabul on Thursday confirmed a horrifying rumor, telling reporters that desperate women in Kabul are throwing their babies over razor-wire barriers in the hope soldiers will catch them and take them out of Afghanistan. Some of the children landed in the razor wire.
People are so desperate to escape the #Taliban that they’re passing babies and kids forward to the gate at #Kabul airport. #kabulairport #AfghanEvac pic.twitter.com/6NSlIffrD1
— Matt Zeller (@mattczeller) August 18, 2021
“It was terrible, women were throwing their babies over the razor wire, asking the soldiers to take them, some got caught in the wire,” a senior British officer told Sky News on Thursday.
“I’m worried for my men, I’m counselling some, everyone cried last night,” he said.
An unnamed British Parachute Regiment officer, possibly the same one, gave a similar account to the UK Independent on Thursday.
“The mothers were desperate, they were getting beaten by the Taliban. They shouted, ‘save my baby’ and threw the babies at us. Some of the babies fell on the barbed wire. It was awful what happened. By the end of the night there wasn’t one man among us who was not crying,” he said.
An Afghan child sleeps on the cargo floor of a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III, kept warm by the uniform of the C-17 loadmaster, during an evacuation flight from Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 15, 2021. Operating a fleet of Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve and Active Duty C-17s, Air Mobility Command, in support of the Department of Defense, moved forces into theater to facilitate the safe departure and relocation of U.S. citizens, Special Immigration Visa recipients, and vulnerable Afghan populations from Afghanistan. (U.S. Air Force Courtesy Photo)
The officer explained that his troops must reluctantly block access to the Kabul airport with parked cars and razor wire to hold the panicked crowds at bay. They can only watch as squads of Taliban thugs brutalize the people trapped a few yards away on the other side of the barrier.
Sky News talked to a woman frantically trying to get through the British checkpoint with her four-year-old daughter in tow. She said her husband began physically abusing her after he joined the Taliban.
“Afghanistan is Taliban. Taliban is terrorist. My husband is a terrorist Talib,” she said, pleading for escape with her child to the U.S., Canada, France, or anywhere that would take them. According to Sky News, she eventually made it to the airport, but countless others have not.
The Independent reported one particular Taliban checkpoint is so infamous for violence against refugees that “warplanes were scrambled to fly low and fire chaff” over a riot it caused.
“I was with my family, one of the Taliban got angry at something my wife said and started beating her with a stick. I got these injuries trying to protect her. The man was actually trying to reach around me to hit her. They seem to like hitting women,” a badly bruised Afghan man told the Independent.
Reuters also spotted parents passing small children over the barriers to American soldiers. One viral video reportedly filmed this week shows a crowd lifting a little girl up to an American soldier, who carefully took her over the barricade.
U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace responded to the reports of women throwing their babies over the barricades by pleading with them to stop. He emphasized that British forces will not take unaccompanied minors out of the country.
“In the footage I have seen them,” Wallace said. “If they are families that are coming through as a whole they will come through. Right now as we are speaking I think we are loading up 120 families onto a plane to depart, another 138 only a few hours later – we will be rolling through that process.”
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