Desperation And Death: Afghan Men Who Fell From US Plane Identified

The horrific face of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan was laid bare when two of the Afghani citizens clinging to the side of a U.S. carrier in a desperate attempt to flee the Taliban fell to their deaths mid-air. The two men fell over a house just five miles from the Kabul internatioal airport, their heads and stomachs cracked open.

Wali Salek, a 49-year-old security guard in the Afghan capital, told the Scroll that the bodies landing on the roof sounded like bombs going off. The impact jarred his house and the plaster came off from his ceiling.

Salek climbed on his roof to check what happened and found blood splattered all over. There were two bodies, badly mangled. “Their stomachs and their heads had cracked open. Their brains had come out,” Salek told a Scroll reporter in Delhi over a video call.

“When I saw them [on the roof], I first thought they were Taliban men who were thrown off the plane but we [the neighbors] checked the bodies.”

The two bodies were taken to a local mosque, where identity cards were found inside the pockets of the two victims. Their families were later informed of their death.

One of the victims was identified as Shafiullah Hotak, aged 25 or 27, going by the birth certificate found inside his coat pocket. The second victim looked younger than 20 and did not have any identification marker on him. But, personnel in the mosque believe the victim to be Fida Mohammad, a boy from a nearby town.

On Thursday, Afghanistan's sports federation confirmed that a 17-year-old footballer with the national youth team was one of the victims of Monday’s mayhem at the airport, where people could be seen running alongside the plane on the tarmac. Zaki Anwari was one of the people in the crowd that tried to escape the country by clinging on to the side of a U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17, reported The New York Times.

“Anwari was one of hundreds of young people who wanted to leave the country and, in an incident, fell off an American military plane and died,” said the federation on Facebook.

Details about when he died or fell were not revealed, reported the BBC.

“In addition to online videos and press reports of people falling from the aircraft on departure, human remains were discovered in the wheel well of the C-17 after it landed at al-Udeid airbase, Qatar,” said the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI), reported The Guardian.

As of Thursday, Kabul airport remained in chaos. The Taliban has been guarding the airport entrance and dozens of people, eligible for evacuation, are being prevented from entering the compound. Many people were seen throwing their babies over razor wires on the sides of airport compounds asking British soldiers to take them.