An American recently evacuated from Afghanistan said she felt like she’d never “be able to come back home” amid the Taliban takeover.
Salma Kazemi, 24, left in early August to visit family in Afghanistan with her mother, planning to return in September. However, her plans changed when the Taliban swept across the country and invaded Kabul.
“We literally felt hopeless, and that’s when my family was freaking out as well and wondering [if] we probably would never be able to come back home,” Kazemi told CNN. “I feel like no one’s doing anything about it. We’re doing as much as we can, but I feel like there could be more done.”
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Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Colorado Republican representing the district where Kazemi and her mother live, offered to help get the two women home safely.
“It is a humanitarian and strategic and security crisis that is unfolding,” Lamborn said. “It’s very regrettable, and I think we can do better as a nation.”
Kazemi said she and her mother went to the airport in Kabul to get on a charter flight when a gun was fired at them, as the Taliban were already there. A crowd at the airport began to surround them, she said.
“It was so scary,” she said. “We were scared that they might try to open the car doors and take our stuff.”
The Taliban let them pass through when they saw Kazemi’s mother’s American passport.
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“We had to fight just as much. Some people had no paperwork. Some people were from Germany, Turkey. We were all in the same mess,” she said. “There were kids just crying … They were fainting, and there were people all bloody and having strokes, and it was probably something I would never expect to see.”
She added: “There was barbed wire, and my mom’s clothes tore. Her hand was bleeding.”
A British soldier directed them toward the correct gate, and they were able to board the flight back home, Kazemi said.
