As the primary anniversary of the disastrous US pullout from Afghanistan approaches, a sufferer of considered one of its most ugly tragedies lastly has a reputation.
Zabi Rezayee, 17, was one of many determined civilians who clung to the touchdown gear and wheel covers of a US Air Force C-17 because it taxied down the runway of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 16, 2021 — solely to fall to his demise on the tarmac, his father instructed the Sunday Times of London.
And Zabi’s brother Zaki, 19, who joined his tried escape from the Taliban, has not been heard from since, stated Mohammed Rezayee.
“I’m hurting, I’m angry, but there’s nothing I can do,” Rezayee, 42, stated. “I’ve buried one son and I don’t even know if the other one is dead or alive.”
Horrifying cell-phone movies of the younger males who grabbed maintain of the large cargo plane on take-off, then dropped helplessly to the bottom because it gained altitude, gripped the globe as America’s struggle in Afghanistan got here to its chaotic and ignominious finish.
At least 5 would-be stowaways have been killed, though the precise quantity was by no means decided. Two landed in a residential neighborhood, splattering blood throughout a home-owner’s roof. One was discovered crushed in the plane’s wheel well when it landed in Qatar.
And two, together with Zabi, smashed again right down to the runway.
“I blame the pilot and I blame the Americans who were responsible for the airport security,” Rezayee, a father of eight, stated bitterly.
“Why did the pilot make the decision to take off when he knew people were holding onto the aircraft?” the distraught dad requested. “I don’t think those clinging on really believed the plane would leave.”
The Air Force cleared the plane’s crew of wrongdoing final month, Military.com reported.
The youngsters didn’t inform their dad and mom of their plans to flee the nation.
“I found out when I got a call from them at the airport,” their father stated. “They sounded excited, they said they were about to board the plane. I was happy for them, happy that they were leaving to somewhere safe because we were all so terrified of what would happen here with the Taliban in control.”
The name lasted solely a minute or two. “That was the last time I spoke to them,” he stated.
Minutes later, a stranger referred to as Rezayee from Zabi’s telephone.
“The guy on my son’s phone said they found Zabi’s dead body,” Rezayee told Vice News this week. He ran the 4 miles to the airport. “I found him in pieces.” Someone had draped a shawl over the teen’s naked, damaged decrease half.
But the daddy’s search of Kabul’s hospitals and jails turned up no signal of Zaki, his oldest boy.
“To this day, I’ve never received any information about Zaki,” he stated. His “tormented” spouse “says a little prayer every time she hears her phone ring, desperately hoping it will be some news.”
“It’s the not knowing that’s the hardest to deal with,” he stated.
“They were kind boys. They liked to play football,” Rezayee recalled. “They were educated. Zaki could speak English. He used to teach his younger siblings a bit.”
The household has struggled because the Taliban’s grip despatched half the nation’s individuals into near-starvation. Without his sons’ assist, Rezayee stated, he may now not run his fruit and vegetable store.
“It feels like a waste of time to be angry about my sons. I have to use that energy to find a way to support my remaining children,” he stated.
“But I would give anything to know what happened to Zaki.”
