Zaki Anwari: Afghan footballer fell to his death from flying US aircraft after Kabul’s fall

Kabul: A member of Afghanistan’s junior under-19 football team, Zaki Anwari, was among those who fell to their deaths from the outside of a military aircraft as it took off from Kabul Airport in August 16 after Kabul fell to Taliban.

Afghan General Directorate of Physical Education & Sports confirmed his death in a statement, saying ““Anwari was amongst the hundreds of young Afghans who wanted to leave the country and died in an accident falling from the American military plane.”

Videos of a couple men falling from flying US aircraft shocked the world as the Taliban enter the Afghan capital.

Thousands of people gathered on Kabul’s Hamid Karzai Airport seeking to escape, including some who clung to a US military plane as it taxied on the runway.

Commenting on the chaos at the Kabul airport, Jonathan Finer, Deputy National Security Advisor said, “These are not just the people at the airport these are people in particular categories.”

Finer said, these are “people who worked alongside US mission for the last two decades. Many of whom are in the process of applying for special immigrant visa, a program created by the congress to enable people who face additional risk because they supported our mission, they ought to get out of the country.”

He explained, “We are also going to evacuate locally employed staff of our mission and embassy.”