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Reliving the Taliban horror of 2021 power grab

The Citizen

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August 13, 2025

The day after the Taliban stormed into the Afghan capital in August 2021, Afghans desperate to evacuate clung to the fuselage of a departing American plane at Kabul airport - only to fall to their deaths.

Kabul - The day after the Taliban stormed into the Afghan capital in August 2021, Afghans desperate to evacuate clung to the fuselage of a departing American plane at Kabul airport - only to fall to their deaths.

Four years later, their families still endure wounds they say will never heal. The images sped around the world: hundreds of people running alongside a military plane, some clinging to it.

Other videos show figures falling from the C-17, plummeting through the air.

One of them was Shafiullah Hotak. Aged 18, he dreamt of becoming a doctor, but lacking the money for his studies, was forced to do odd jobs.

On 16 August 2021, the day after the Taliban seized Kabul, Hotak was swept up by rumours that the departing Americans, after 20 years of war, were taking with them Afghans eager to flee.

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