Taliban were walking with guns, even an RPG: Filmmaker recalls horrific scenes from Kabul airport

Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat recalled witnessing children crying and elderly fainting before fleeing Kabul amid the Taliban takeover.

New Delhi: Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat described the horrific scenes at Kabul airport before she escaped Afghanistan to fly to Paris in an interview with an agency. She revealed that because of her international connections, she had received an offer to leave the country as the Taliban was taking over. However, she didn't take it up, not until later.

When she finally did, she described her feelings about the same in a conversation with Reuters. She said, "I was lucky but this is not the situation for many people. They do not speak English, they are not a filmmaker, they don't have any international friends and their life is in danger."

The filmmaker recalled the Taliban walking with cables, funs and even an RPG. Sadat revealed, "(The Taliban) wanted to (make people queue) which was impossible because the crowd was pushing from all directions and Taliban were walking with cables and with guns and with even with (an) RPG."

"Children were crying and the old people were fainting ... because it was so hot," she added.

In a scary turn of events, her father was about to be singled out by the Taliban members but to protect him, she shielded him and since they were less aggressive with men compared to women, they let them go.

Shahrbanoo Sadat is a renowned filmmaker who spent her childhood in Tehran, Afghanistan. With an interest in movie-making, she studied documentary filmmaking at the Kabul workshop of Ateliers Varan. The brilliant director had won the top prize at Cannes Film Festival's Directors' Fortnight for her debut feature film titled Wolf and Sheep in 2016.