NBC’s Hallie Jackson spoke with a woman journalist from Afghanistan who told the story of her dramatic escape from the country after it was taken over by the Taliban.
Fatema Hosseini, writing for USA TODAY, published her recollections on Thursday of what it was like to be in Kabul on the day the Taliban seized control over the Afghan capital city. As a journalist who didn’t follow the Taliban’s oppressive societal norms, Hosseini described the alarm that overtook her family on the day of the takeover, the burning everything in her apartment that the Taliban would’ve deemed incriminating, and how she messaged her colleagues for help.
“The freedom I had, it was gone right at that moment,” Hosseini told Jackson. “It changed in several hours.”
Housseini’s recollections were interspersed with accounts from Kim Hjelmgaard, another USA TODAY reporter, who corresponded with her while reaching out to anyone who could advise her on how to evacuate. The two caught a break when Hjelmgaard contacted Alex Cornell du Houx, a U.S. Navy lieutenant colonel who got in touch with Ukrainian special forces. This eventually led to Housseini being cleared to board a humanitarian flight out of Hamid Karzai International Airport.
Housseini’s account goes on to describe the chaos of trying to reach the plane, the most shocking anecdotes being when she was tear-gassed, threatened by Taliban fighters, and sexually assaulted:
From USA TODAY:
I
got trapped in the middle of a large family. The woman was so mad, but I couldn’t tell who was part of the family and who was not. She pushed me back. So I tried to slowly move through them in a crouch. I couldn’t stand because the Taliban would shoot. They were whipping people who got close. Then people got mad about the tear gas and started running.Once I stood, a man reached around and grabbed me hard between my legs. I couldn’t move forward because he was grabbing me, and I couldn’t sit because his hand was between my legs, and I couldn’t stay standing because bullets were zipping over my head. I couldn’t move his hand. His family watched the assault. A woman smacked me on my back and said: “Sit down! They’re going to shoot you!”I thought, OK, Fatema, you’re going to die here, but this is torture.I stood taller and shouted, “I want to get out!”A Talib inches away emptied his gun next to my ear. I went deaf. Another woman beside me was hit by bullets. I could see the shells falling. I didn’t dare look back. The Talib pushed me hard and I stumbled out of the crowd. Everything went black.
“It just hurts so much,” Hosseini said as she recalled all of this to Jackson.
Hosseini and her family were eventually able to escape the Taliban, and
Watch above, via NBC.