On the day of the dramatic assault by terrified Afghans of American planes at Kabul airport, a C-17 Globemaster, a military cargo plane, took off with 640 refugees crammed on board, taking them to safety in Qatar. This is what we read on the Defense One website, but nothing can tell the tragedy experienced in Afghanistan in these hours like the photo published inside the plane from the same site.
Hundreds of people, mostly young men, but also women, the elderly, children, sitting on the ground during the flight – which took place last Sunday – in order to leave their country in war. According to the reconstruction made by some sources, the C-17 was not supposed to leave so loaded: the cargo has a capacity of just under 200 seats. But the Afghans who had been cleared to leave and were waiting their turn managed to get in through the aircraft’s semi-open tailgate. Instead of having the military intervene to let out the people who should not have been on board the C-17, “the crew decided to leave”, the sources tell again, stressing that it is believed that this was the largest number of people ever transported from this type of cargo plane.
The image went around the world when the fleeing people were already in the Al Udeid safe base in Qatar. An exception? Defense One says that other freighters have brought as many Afghans away from their country: “some may have had even more passengers on board” they write. From the airport under American control, the only way out of Kabul, images like this are the norm in these hours. And the world, through a photo, gathers around the tragedy in Afghanistan.