With no evacuation flights, Afghans weigh risky overland trips to borders

FILE PHOTO: People arriving from Afghanistan gather at the Friendship Gate crossing point in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border town of Chaman, Pakistan August 27, 2021. REUTERS/Saeed Ali Achakzai/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the last U.S. troops prepared to leave Afghanistan, Hussain, a U.S. passport holder who worked with the U.S. military, scrambled with his six daughters through Taliban checkpoints to the gates of Kabul airport for several days in a row, hoping to catch a flight to safety.

He had called and emailed the U.S. Embassy for days without a response. Then a U.S. soldier phoned him to say his only chance for a flight out was alone, without his daughters who are not U.S. citizens. Hussain's wife had died in July of COVID-19, and leaving would mean abandoning them.