Mothers reported to throw babies over Kabul airport barbed wire in desperation

With thousands of Afghans converging on Kabul’s airport in recent days, desperate to escape the country now taken over by the Taliban, harrowing reports have emerged of mothers throwing their babies over airport fences and begging soldiers to get them to safety.

“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 officer told Sky News.

The Independent quotes a Parachute Regiment officer giving a similar description.

“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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCAzxoMwdxo

It was not immediately clear what happened to the babies.

Thousands of people are packed between Taliban checkpoints and a US-imposed ring of steel around Kabul’s main airport, desperate to get aboard any flight out. Even more are mobbing foreign embassy compounds in the capital, as rumors spread that visas are up for grabs or safe passage is on offer at least as far as the airport.

Unconfirmed reports on social media say several people have been killed as US forces and the Taliban struggle to contain the desperate throngs on their respective sides of an unofficial no-man’s land.