For nine frantic days, it was packed with tens of thousands trying to escape Afghanistan. Today it is once again limited – it is deathly quiet. We drove from the airport terminal along the dusty road that led to the British Evacuation Processing Centre, based at the Baron Hotel. To our left, a series of walls that secured the corridor are still there. So are the gaps where desperate refugees punched holes in concrete and lowered coiled barbed wire to drop their children into the arms of relatives and soldiers above them, hoping to find shelter. At a Taliban checkpoint 100 meters from the Baron’s gates, a guard halted our progress. This checkpoint did not exist a year ago. Image: The entrance to the former British processing site at the Baron Hotel We explained that we had to see the Baron. He had no idea what the hell we were doing, but he finally let us through. At the gates we stopped. The four of us had spent days filming the desperate plight of people trying to escape, submerged in a rising mass of humanity. We stopped where we saw people crushed to death, passed out from dehydration and starvation – and we stopped when a suicide bomb exploded in a canal – killing at least 170 Afghans and 13 US Marines, effectively ending this terrible episode. We stopped and remembered those days a year ago, and thought of those left behind. Read more: Massacre in Kabul – how the attacks unfolded Today I met one of those people. We won’t name him for his safety, but he served five years at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province for the British Army. He spent three days and three nights in the crowds outside the Baron and finally gave up when the IS-K suicide bomber hit the canal. He was only 100 meters away with his wife and two young children. He has been in hiding ever since, moving from location to location every month, his life in a permanent state of emptiness. Subscribe to Out Of Afghanistan on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker “My life has become hell now, I don’t know what to do, where can I go, where can I tell people to help me, whose help?” he said, speaking to me at an undisclosed location in the capital. “I just want to say, please, tell the world, the UK government, the UK people, the UK soldiers, that I worked with them for five years. “I spent my life, I sacrificed everything for them, I worked shoulder to shoulder with them even in bad situations, I was with the UK, in Helmand province in Afghanistan. “I want to ask everyone, with ARAP cases, just look into my case and get me out of this hell.” His Afghanistan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP) application has been submitted and has a case reference number, but he is still awaiting final approval and news of a withdrawal plan. “A month ago I asked them to send me an update, but they just say wait, wait, wait…” Image: The Taliban flag flies high in central Kabul He is confused by the delay, feels abandoned and overshadowed by another war. “What is the difference between my blood – Afghan blood – and Ukrainian blood?” he asks. “The UK gave Ukraine 100,000 visas for them when they were at war for a month, and still a year later for me… why are they doing this to me?” He says he is physically and mentally exhausted and his wife has never recovered from the trauma of the bombing. His seven-year-old daughter constantly asks him why he is not happy, but she is too young to understand the danger in which the family remains. Read more: Taliban still celebrate victory for a year These children could be hospitalized – but doctors struggle to keep them alive Use Chrome browser for more accessible video player 6:08 Afghanistan: A year under the Taliban “They don’t care about me” A year ago, Sky News did everything we could to help as many people as possible and, like many other news organisations, we managed to get people out. Exactly one year later, that feeling of needing to try to help again came over us all. When I promised that we would do all we could to have his case considered by the British Government, his semblance of composure collapsed and he burst into tears. “Seriously my heart bleeds for my children, for my life, I don’t know what’s going to happen next day, next year, next … tomorrow,” he said, choking back tears and apologizing for his lack of composure. “I love my family so much, but now there is nothing I can do. “I don’t know what to do for my life, for my family, what are we doing, because they don’t help us, many requests, many emails, many everything. “Honestly I worked with them, spent my life with them and helped with their soldiers, but they don’t care about me.” He is not the only one who feels abandoned. There are hundreds if not thousands like this interpreter we spoke to, hiding in family homes, moving every month, unable to work, unable to send their children to school. They live in fear and wait for instructions that may never come.
