This photograph was taken by the US Air Force on 15 August 2021. It shows hundreds of Afghan refugees en route to Qatar, sitting on the floor of a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III aircraft waiting to leave Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul,Afghanistan. It was taken on the day that Kabul fell to the Taliban.
This image went viral on social media amid scenes of chaos in and around the airport as thousands of people tried to flee the country. Le Monde declared that the photograph had become ‘a symbol of the escape from the Taliban’. It was reported that the captain and crew of this plane were overwhelmed by the number of passengers on board but decided to depart, rather than escort people off.
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