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U.S.: 6,000 Evacuated From Kabul Past 24 Hours; Chaotic Journey To Escape Through Kabul Airport; Some Haiti Areas Receiving No Aid After Earthquake. Aired 12-12:15a ET
Aired August 21, 2021 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello, everyone, and welcome to CNN NEWSROOM, I am Michael Holmes. Appreciate your company.
Evacuation flights have resumed in Kabul after a lengthy pause on Friday as officials scrambled to line up more countries willing to take in the refugees, even temporarily. It is, of course, a massive operation but nowhere near enough to accommodate the crowds outside the gates and those hiding in Kabul.
Anxiety and fear are palpable as men, women and children wait, sometimes for days now, in oppressing heat during the day and cold at night and try to ward off assaults by Taliban militants.
Meantime, the Taliban are showing off the spoils of war, publishing photos showing their fighters armed with U.S. weapons seized from the Afghan national army.
The Pentagon confirmed on Friday that 169 Americans were evacuated by helicopter from a hotel when they were unable to reach the Kabul airport on foot. It is the first known rescue operation of Americans outside the airport perimeter. U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday suggesting it might not be the last.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let me be clear. Any American, who wants to come home, we will get you home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you commit to the same commitment -- would you make the same commitment to bring out Afghans, who assisted in the war effort?
BIDEN: Yes. Yes. We're making the same commitment. There's no one more important than bringing American citizens out. I acknowledge that. But they're equally important, almost, is all those who -- those SIVs, we call them, who, in fact, helped us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: The U.S. doesn't know exactly how many Americans might still be in Afghanistan but the U.S. State Department says it is actively trying to track them down. So for those who do make it inside the Kabul airport, the journey to
escape is still far from over. Our Clarissa Ward and her team were among those who are able to leave Afghanistan Friday. She shows us the growing desperation among the thousands of people trying to flee Taliban rule.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After three weeks in Afghanistan, we joined the crowds at Kabul airport. Now the only way out of the country.
(on camera): There's a huge block here, lots of cars.
(voice-over): hundreds of people wait in the blistering heat, hoping for a flight out.
(on camera): So we just managed to get into the airport compound and I have to say it was pretty intense. It was just like this crush of desperate people and screaming children and women and babies. And -- yes, it's not often you rarely see desperation like that.
(voice-over): The few people that do make it are exhausted and scared but they're the lucky ones. They've made it past the Taliban checkpoints, Afghan security guards and finally the airport gate. But they can't forget those who they left behind.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're getting out. We're happy for that. But we're heartbroken for our country. Especially for those can't get out, those who are stuck here. And we're really heartbroken. Our heart bleeds for them.
WARD (on camera): What do you feel for all the mothers with young daughters will now be growing up under Taliban rule?
The back of a pretty long line now. Transportations are just strained, they said. And obviously, the priority is getting children and babies out as soon as possible. But I think we'll probably be here for a while.
You'd work for the U.S. military or ... ?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not military but we are working with the Ministry of --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Defense.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- Defense.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In Afghanistan.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But we are also work with the foreign people, too.
WARD (on camera): And so you have visa?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, yes.
WARD (voice-over): As we interview this couple, suddenly shouts behind us, a vehicle speeds through.
(on camera): That's a newborn baby that just flew past. That was a newborn.
Did you see the baby?
It was this big.
(voice-over): The baby, we find out, has heat stroke and needs treatment. A reminder for these families that they're close to safety but not there yet.
We stand in the blazing hot sun for hours.
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WARD (voice-over): Everyone's seeking what shelter they can. Patients wearing thin. It's an agonizingly slow process but finally we're allowed inside. Out on the tarmac now safe but the chaos continues.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been waiting for two days, yesterday since 3:00 am
WARD (on camera): Yesterday, since 3:00 am?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
WARD (on camera): Tell me what the situation was like trying to get into the airport.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was really busy. And a lot of people were just fighting and trying to make way for themselves. But we push through.
WARD (on camera): We are certainly some of the very lucky ones here. Others, as you heard from that young man, have been waiting for two days. Others we saw getting turned around, sent back, told you don't have the appropriate paperwork.
And there's no question, everybody here is doing their best. But it's not clear if it's fast enough, if enough people can get out and how much longer they have to finish this massive operation -- Clarissa Ward, CNN, Kabul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Now a short time ago, Clarissa tweeted that she has landed in Doha, Qatar, along with her team and nearly 300 Afghan evacuees, thanking those involved, saying, quote, "We are the lucky ones."
The Russian president Vladimir Putin says the world needs to accept the political reality of Taliban control in Afghanistan. He made those remarks at a news conference with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, in Moscow. Mr. Putin says the way things unfolded shows it is time for countries to stop meddling in Afghanistan's affairs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA (through translator): It is necessary to stop the U.S. policy of imposing someone else's values from the outside. The desire to build democracy from outside, according to the other people's patterns, without taking into account any historical, cultural or religious realities, completely ignoring the traditions by which other people live.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Both the Russian president and German chancellor also spoke to the importance of keeping the area safe from terrorists.
And preventing terror is also a top concern of NATO as it takes stock of the Afghanistan crisis. It was part of discussions at an emergency meeting of foreign ministers on Friday. As Melissa Bell reports, NATO's first priority is to improve evacuation efforts.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This was an opportunity for NATO foreign ministers to meet virtually for the first time since Kabul fell, an opportunity, for some soul-searching for what went wrong and what needed to be done.
What was agreed upon was the need for greater cooperation and coordination and getting NATO allies and Afghans who helped them over the years out of the country. There has been a lot of frustration in Europe over the manner of the American withdrawal but more specifically about what has been going around Hamid Karzai Airport and the lack of cooperation and coordination of the Americans.
Many European says that has stymied efforts to get European nationals and Afghans who've helped them out. So an agreement by foreign ministers that they will work more closely together in the days going ahead to fix that specific problem but also looking ahead longer term to what they say is the need to prevent Afghanistan from ever again becoming a haven for terrorists.
The secretary general also acknowledging that there will be long term lessons for the alliance at a time when Europeans have been doing some soul searching of themselves these last few years about their need for greater strategic independence and less reliance on the United States -- Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: More international aid is dripping into Southern Haiti as the needs of earthquake victims get more dire by the hour. UNICEF delivered the first batch of supplies to the capital on Friday. More aid is on the way.
We want to take you to some areas that have not received any help since the earthquake struck a week ago. Our Matt Rivers flew there. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Our chopper takes off with no clear destination in mind. Flying with charity group World Central Kitchen or WCK, we want to find remote villages in Haiti that still need help.
A week after this earthquake just finding out where the needs are, remains a challenge. A tip led us to Grande Cayemite, an island off Haiti's coast.
On the ground, we're told damage is actually a bit further west, which it is seen from above. Dozens of structures were damaged and the contact in town told us no one has come to help them yet, but we can't either.
RIVERS: So there was damage in that town and the people there clearly wanted us to land and the problem was there was no safe area for us to touch down and that gives you an idea of how difficult it is to access these places.
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RIVERS: Just because you want to go somewhere doesn't mean that you can at least right away.
RIVERS (voice-over): Another tip leads us back into Haiti's mountains and the remote town of Minish. Destruction greets us as we land and the charity starts to assess the damage.
RIVERS: In terms of figuring out exactly what needs what you really need to go to the ground?
JOHN MARC DEMATTEIS, BOARD MEMBER, WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN: Correct. And these areas are remote, for the cell service has been knocked out and due to damage from the earthquake. So there's no substitute for just getting out there and on the ground.
RIVERS (voice-over): There team fans out and so do we, the damage is as bad as anything we've seen. Entire blocks destroyed, near some damage lead distinct smell of bodies lingers. Amidst all the rubble there is grief.
Rose Mika Fontus' mom died when her home collapsed. My mom was everything to us, she says and now she's gone. We're just waiting for help.
Rose is now homeless, saying the government has yet to visit her town, they've had to make do with what they have not easy in such a remote place. That's where charities like WKC are trying to help fill the gap. People crowd around as the team drops off a few hundred sandwiches. Now that they know where to go, aid workers say thousands more meals will likely follow soon.
RIVERS: Of course, it is a good thing that organizations like the World Central Kitchen have identified this town in dire need of assistance. They're starting to figure out exactly what those needs are. But those are just first steps, unfortunately.
Getting those government resources actually moved into that area is a different challenge altogether. And this is not the only town affected by the earthquake there. Scattered throughout the region affected by all of this, many of which haven't gotten any help so far -- Matt Rivers, CNN, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
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HOLMES: Hurricane Grace is now the first major hurricane in the Atlantic hurricane season and just hours away from making landfall in Mexico for a second. Time its outer bands already lashing the Mexican coast. It is now a category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds of 195 kilometers an hour.
Grace is expected to produce up to 12 inches or 300 millimeters of rain. Hurricane warnings are posted all along the northeast United States as tropical storm Henri approaches. A travel advisory is in effect New York City due to heavy rain and wind.
Henri is expected to make landfall Sunday as a category 1 hurricane possibly on Long Island.
Thank you for spending the end of the day with me, I'm Michael Holmes. Do stay tuned for "MARKETPLACE AFRICA," I will see you in the next hour.
