[kellyhound]

At least seven people have been killed at Kabul airport by stampeding crowds, as thousands of panicked Afghans try to flee the country, the British military said on Sunday.

Since the Taliban takeover last week, huge crowds of Afghans have lined up outside Kabul airport in scorching temperatures to try and secure a place on an evacuation flight out of the country.

Although the British military confirmed seven deaths, eyewitnesses on the ground claim the real figure is much higher.

One of those killed was a 2-year-old toddler, who was trampled to death by the surging crowd.

The toddler was the child of a former interpreter for an American company who was trying to leave Kabul along with her family, the paper reported.

When the crowd swelled, the interpreter and her family fell to the ground. She lost sight of her daughter and later found she had been crushed to death.

"I felt pure terror," the woman told, I could not save her.

A reporter described the chaotic scenes as paratroopers pulled people from the crowd and medics rushed "from the next casualty to the next, then the next and the next."

Soldiers often sprayed the crowds with hoses in an attempt to cool them down, he said.

The Independent's Kim Sengupta reported witnessing several deaths caused by the crush of the crowd and heat at Kabul airport.

He said the official number of fatalities was 12 but the real figure was almost certainly a lot higher.

Speaking to LBC, Sengupta said, "I've seen four people crushed to death in the space of about an hour, there are probably more dead in places we can't access."


The dead child: https://pixeldrain.com/u/o1VVLX2v

[Kaboom]

I don't think Boris saying we will take 20,000 and Labour politicians saying it needs to be far more helped.