I saw thousands of people running towards the airport, people leaving their cars and running on foot. Children, youth and women were all running and I was running with all of them.”
“Then someone said to me, “If the Taliban catch you they will kill you, you should run faster…”
These things were said by Britain’s Counselor Peimana Assad while recounting the past week’s tragedy. She managed to escape from the Taliban and reach Britain.
Pemana Assad arrived in Britain as a refugee at the age of three and has come a long way since then. Assad is the first person of Afghan origin to be elected to public office in Britain. He is a counselor from the Harrow area of ​​London. Asad had come to Kabul on July 30 to meet his family members.
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Paimaana said he saw scenes of “chaos” near Kabul airport before boarding the plane for Britain on Tuesday.
She says, “It was a difficult and painful experience for me. I think this experience has changed my outlook on life and as a person.”
30-year-old Pemana Assad says her relatives began to worry when the Taliban began to advance into Afghanistan in early August.
She says, “My family started putting a lot of pressure on me and told you to book the tickets and leave.”
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“I believed that the Taliban would not be able to capture Kabul and that the government would not fall,” he said.
“But everything changed completely and on August 14, extremists gathered on the outskirts of the capital of Afghanistan.”
“Kabul was under siege and my family felt I had to leave my ancestral home.”
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Peyana says her family was worried that the Taliban would search homes and vehicles and they would be barred from leaving the country.
So on Saturday evening she packed her bags and shifted to a temporary accommodation near the international airport.
By then, the British government had begun rescue operations for British and Afghan civilians who had served for the British Army.
“When I woke up at 10 in the morning, I got a call from the embassy. The British embassy said, we are getting you out of Kabul,” says Paimana.
Then Paimana realized that he had very little time to assess the situation.
“I was sitting there drinking tea when the neighbors knocked on my door.”
“They were very nervous. They said, Taliban have entered Kabul and have also captured some districts and now they are moving towards this district. You have to leave now.”
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- “When I Started Running To The Airport”
Paimana says that when the roads in the area were closed, she started walking towards the airport along with her neighbors.
She says, “I saw thousands of people walking and running from a street to the airport. People were getting out of vehicles and running towards the airport.”
“Women, youth and children too… and then I started running along with them.”
Seeing people running towards the airport in panic and panic, the shopkeepers also came out and then one of them pointed at me and said, “You… if the Taliban catch you, they will kill you. Run fast.” “
This created a lot of fear in my heart. Because if he had caught me, it could have really happened. So I started running towards the airport more quickly.
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The scale reached the meeting point where British citizens were supposed to gather, but they were told she had arrived too late. The officers had already arrived and now they have left.
“I was standing there on the street. My phone’s battery was only 3% and I wondered what would happen if my phone went off right here. To reach a safe place, I have to go inside.”
“During this whole uproar I met an Afghan family, they decided to take me to their house. They let me charge my phone at their house and give me food.”
- what happened then?
Asad says she managed to call the Foreign Ministry and London MP Gareth Thomas, who advised her to return to the meeting point on time.
“That Afghan family was very kind. They put me in their car and took me back to the safe meeting point. When I got there I saw British soldiers there.”
“As soon as I saw him and he saw me, I felt very safe and there was a kind of relief that I was safe now.”
Referring to the British government’s response to the current situation in Afghanistan, the scale said, “We don’t have time, we now need to get Afghan citizens to a safe place.”
“We’ll deal with the bureaucracy later. The Taliban are conducting house-to-house searches and searching for people who have had links with the Afghan government and who have worked with foreign forces. Their lives are at risk. helped us, it is our responsibility to help them.”
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