The Bhutanese Leading the way.
A suicide bomb ripped through the crowd at the Kabul airport killing a total of 170 people that included Afghani men, women and children, 13 US soldiers and some Taliban guards.
The ISIS-K, a terrorist group in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility.
This is the culmination of a worsening situation in Kabul and Afghanistan that the last Bhutanese working in Kabul in one of the UN agencies is witnessing up close.
Gurung (named changed) said that he was trying to get out of Kabul on a commercial flight by the first week of September, but with all the chaos at the airport he learned that he cannot leave on a commercial flight as he originally planned.
The UN is now trying to arrange an air bridge between Kabul and Almaty for him and other UN staff.
He said that he is seeing people desperately trying to get to the Kabul airport but now the Taliban is getting tougher and discouraging Afghan citizens while allowing mainly foreigners.
Gurung said that despite the blasts and injuries on Thursday evening evacuation flights resumed from Friday again.
On the international evacuation going on Gurung said the Taliban has already made it clear that it will not allow international forces to remain beyond 31st August.
The Taliban want the UN programs to continue and the UN Secretary General said the UN should be there for the people of Afghanistan, but Gurung said that once he can get out of Afghanistan he does not plan to come back due to the security situation.
Gurung said he is secure in the UN compound but nothing can be taken for granted as terrorists have been known to ram in explosive laden vehicles through gates in suicide attacks.
The Taliban initially showed a progressive face saying it will allow women to study and work.
However, Gurung said that even that appears to now be changing as Afghan women have been asked to stay home for their own safety. He said he is also hearing of barriers being placed in the education of Afghan women.
Women are also being asked to be in full Hijab dress.
He said that the economic situation is only getting worse as the Afghani which is the local currency which was earlier worth 80 Afghanis to the US dollars is now 120 to 100.
He said the Taliban are also going around executing people as revenge killings despite international assurances that amnesty has been given.
Gurung said the result is a climate of fear in Kabul as even civil servants and others hide in their homes fearful to go outside.
He said there is also a humanitarian crisis developing as a lot of Afghans have moved out to Pakistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and other neighboring countries and food and shelter will also be a challenge for the internally displaced Afghans within their own country.
Gurung said that since the Taliban had opposed immunizations in the past there has been a Polio outbreak at the airport.
If all of this was not bad enough Afghanistan suffered badly from COVID-19 earlier killing many Afghans with the virus still at play.
However, there is so much turmoil and chaos that even this dangerous pandemic has receded in the background.
The Foreign Ministry in Bhutan is in constant touch with Gurung in addition to the Bhutanese Embassies in Delhi and New York.
In an update, the US forces left the country in the early hours of 31st August.
