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President Biden Stand on His Decision; Taliban Setting a New Image; Evacuees Stuck in Germany; Hurricane Ida Left Massive Destruction in Louisiana; E.U. Touts Success in Vaccination; Holiday Travel Not Wise As Per CDC Warning; U.N. Warns Of Looming Humanitarian Catastrophe; Pakistan Refusing To Allow Additional Afghan Refugees; Health Care System At Risk Of Collapse; Afghan YouTuber's Last Message; Iraq Takes On Role Of Regional Mediator; Brazil Bank Heist; Tokyo 2020 Paralympics; Abortion Ban In Texas. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired September 01, 2021 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[03:00:00]
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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR (on camera): Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. I'm Rosemary Church.
Just ahead here on CNN Newsroom, U.S. President Joe Biden defends the exit from Afghanistan, while the Taliban marked their first full day in power without U.S. involvement.
Meanwhile, the exodus from Afghanistan is leading to a growing refugee crisis.
And later, and you look at how the COVID Delta variant is pushing some hospitals to their breaking point.
Good to have you with us.
Well U.S. President Joe Biden has delivered his most forceful defense yet of his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The chaotic exit has been harshly criticized by many, but in his address to the nation, the president called the evacuation efforts an extraordinary success, despite up to 200 Americans and thousands of Afghan allies being left behind.
President Biden said he would not extend a forever exit, and the White House now says evacuating the remaining Americans has shifted from a military mission to a diplomatic one. Mr. Biden also declared that the era of military operations in support of nation building was over. And he said ending America's longest war was long overdue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The war in Afghanistan is now over. I am the fourth president who has faced the issue of whether and when to end this war. When I was running for president, I made a commitment to the American people that I would end this war. Today, I am honored to make that commitment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH (on camera): Well, for the Taliban the movie is celebratory. They posed for photos beside military equipment the U.S. left behind, and reiterated promises of a more moderate approach. But fear among Afghan civilians remains, and the data they work of governing a country in crisis has barely begun.
Sam Kiley has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The spoils of war, body armors, helmets, aircraft, all left by Afghanistan's army and the U.S. rush for the exit from America's longest war. The U.S. says it destroyed what it could not take, when the last American boot left the ground from Kabul International Airport.
KENNETH MCKENZIE, COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: We have also demilitarized equipment that we did not bring out of the airport, that included a number of MRAPS, up to 70 MRAPS that we militarized that will never be used again by anyone. Twenty-seven Humvees that all tactical vehicle that will never be driven again. Additionally, on the ramp at HKIA a total of 73 aircraft, those aircraft will never fly again.
KILEY: Although these armored NATO NMAP vehicles have clearly been successfully salvaged, but after 20 years of war, terror attacks and political murder, the triumphant Taliban striking a conciliatory turn at the same airport.
"The Islamic emirate of Afghanistan wants good relations with the Americans through diplomacy. However, the Americans failed here. They failed. From the military perspective, they failed to achieve their goals, but the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan wants to have good relations with the whole world on behalf of the nation," said the Taliban spokesman.
He repeated orders for Taliban special forces to treat even former Afghan enemies with respect. "I call on all our soldiers to treat the people well because the people have the right to peace, to unite, and we are the servants of the nation. We must not oppress the people," he said.
In Kabul, some celebrated the U.S. withdrawal with gunfire. In daylight, a persistent fear of the city's new Taliban masters, a more muted response.
[03:04:58]
"It is good that Americans withdrew from the country. They must let Afghans discuss what they will agree on, and how they would form a government. The government must be inclusive, acceptable to all Afghanistan," he said. The Taliban has promised to deliver that, and to allow anyone who
wants to leave to go, including at least 100 Americans still trapped in Afghanistan. Their future administration and aid and trade depends on it. Failure to deliver will inevitably lead to a victory spoiled.
Sam Kiley, CNN, Doha.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH (on camera): And there were many logistical elements to air lifting more than 122,000 people out of Kabul. Details are now emerging about one that had been kept secret, an arrangement with the Taliban to escort groups of Americans to the airport gates.
CNN's Oren Liebermann has details.
OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Taliban has been a part of this process. The U.S. evacuation and the withdrawal pretty much since the very beginning, and they only became a bigger more critical part as the U.S. evacuation and withdrawal near its conclusion. Daily communication, constant communication on the ground between U.S. forces that were there, the commanders there and the Taliban, we've now learned just how deep that was.
A secret arrangement according to defense officials where the U.S. would tell American citizens to go to a gathering point or, a muster point and then the Taliban would bring them from that point to the airport. It could only be revealed now because of how sensitive this is.
First, if the Taliban had to respond in some way, and second, if ISIS- K, the threat we saw, knew about this, they would have another chance of targeting Americans on their way to the airport. And that's why this was kept secret until now.
But there was another part to the evacuation the secret attempts to get Americans out of the country, special operations forces that were operating on the ground there, had a secret door to the airport that they would use to guide Americans to that door, and bring them onto airport grounds.
Now, it's unclear to what extent the Taliban allowed all of the U.S. through the airport. There are reports of them not letting all Americans through, and if some were stopped and turned back, that remains part of the question.
We do know that General Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command acknowledged how much special operations forces did in the final days there, that's because he said on Monday when he spoke at a press briefing at the press -- at the Pentagon, that special operation forces brought in more than 1,000 American citizens, and 2,000 Afghan special immigrant visa applicants.
So, now we are getting a clearer sense of the level of the operations used to bring Americans and the connections around that.
Oren Liebermann, CNN, Pentagon.
CHURCH: And CNN's Anna Coren has covered Afghanistan for years. He joins me now live from Hong Kong. Good to see you, Anna.
So, President Biden is calling the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan an extraordinary success in an address targeted at a domestic audience. What is the view from Afghanistan on how all this played out, and of course what lies ahead?
ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Rosemary, I think it's fair to say for the thousands of people, tens of thousands perhaps who want to leave Afghanistan, they feel stranded. They feel abandoned. These are people who, you know, made attempts to go to the airport, to have their documents seen. We know that there are several hundred Americans still in Afghanistan. Some are choosing to stay, but there are at least 200 who also made that attempts to be evacuated.
But there are so many, Rosemary, who worked for the Americans, who work for foreign companies, who believe that they will now be targeted by the Taliban, despite their blanket amnesty that they're saying that they're going to give to everybody. People just are not believing it.
So, we are getting messages from women in particular, you know, who have not left their homes since the Taliban came into Kabul on the 15th of August. Let me read to you one of those messages sent to me by a woman, a woman who is a professional, who had a career, who thought she had a future.
She said, please don't forget the Afghan allies you've left behind. To the media, don't forget us. We've been silenced by the Taliban and have no way to raise our voices openly. I am scared and have a heavy pain in my height. Please, do something for us.
So, you know, Rosemary, as we've been discussing, there is a huge challenge now ahead for the Taliban. It's all good and well to drive around and pickup trucks with guns to have been on the battlefield for the last 20 years, they now have to govern for 38 million people and provide them with basic services, like electricity which, you know, the city of Kabul has outages constantly every single day.
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You know, water, clean water, let alone the humanitarian crisis facing the country. According to the United Nations, a third of the population is struggling to survive half of the population is malnourished. And we know that the government previously was propped by foreign aid.
So, the Taliban is going to have to have some sort of relationship with the international community to help this society function moving forward.
CHURCH: Anna Coren, joining us live from Hong Kong, many thanks.
Joining me now is CNN global affairs analyst Susan Glasser. Thank you so much for being with us.
SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Thank you for having me.
CHURCH: Well, in what was a very defensive address Tuesday, President Biden said he finished the war in Afghanistan because it no longer served the national interest, and he called the exit successful, but did the team meet the moment and adequately address the criticisms of a very chaotic unplanned, and bungled exit that left behind Americans and Afghan allies?
GLASSER: Well, you know it's interesting. President Biden was nothing if not vehement I thought in his speech today, marking the end of America's longest war. Twenty years war in Afghanistan. Certainly not something that anyone anticipated back in 2001 when the United States went into Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks.
You know, to me, Biden is playing for the American political audience with that speech very much. Broadly speaking there is a lot more support across the American political spectrum for the overall policy of withdrawing from Afghanistan, and not necessarily so much for how it was done and the manner it was done.
And you can see that Biden is much more defensive on that issue, and much more interested in talking about the overall decision that he made, and sticking with that decision to withdraw.
CHURCH: The dilemma here is that all U.S. servicemembers have left but not all American citizens. And so, critics are highlighting Biden's broken promised made two weeks ago, that he would ensure that U.S. troops would stay until all American citizens were out of Afghanistan.
But after 200 or so, we understand still remain, as well as thousands of Afghan allies, how will that broken promise likely impact President Biden going forward if he can't get them all out?
GLASSER: Well look, the bottom line is that, you know, it was a surprise. I think when Biden made that commitment, he said not just that he would get them all out, but he said that the U.S. would stay as long as it took in order to do so, and then he would consider reevaluating his self-imposed August 31st deadline for withdrawal.
That was never realistic, according to military experts with whom I spoke even at the time. It's unclear why he made a commitment like that, given the enormous logistical difficulties. The fact that no one probably would've held him to the last 100 people had he not choose and to set that standard himself.
So, it's not a surprise really that Republicans right now in Washington are complaining about that as a broken promise. Realistically speaking, I think, there was never really a sense that they were going to get every single last person. Now, Biden has said that it will shift into an intensive diplomatic effort, to make sure that the Taliban lives up to its commitment, and allows free passage of those U.S. citizens and anyone else who wants to leave the country. CHURCH: So, in the end what lessons have been learned? And will
President Biden pay dearly for the poorly executed evacuation, and of course those left behind? Or will Americans eventually view his decision as a plus, because he was the only U.S. president to bring the country's longest war to an end?
GLASSER: Well, again, you know, it seems to me that of course it's very early to tell what the long-term politics of this would be, or if there will be any. Americans have been largely indifferent to Afghanistan for much of the 20 years that the United States has been engaged there.
That's part of the reason why none of Biden's predecessors were willing to expend political credibility one way or the other. It was just enough below the radar for most Americans politically. Most families were not affected by it. Our U.S. military draw from only a small segment of the population and the result was in effect a sort of a standoff, and a political indifference to the fate of this country and to the question of why the U.S. was even there in the first place.
Biden said something that I think is really important. He said in the future, you know, my lesson, my takeaway, is we need to have clear objectives and clear goals for intervening in another country.
[03:14:59]
And I think it's fair to say that the original goal of the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was very clear. It was to deny safe haven to Al-Qaeda, and the Taliban regime that gave it to Al-Qaeda, and to make sure there were no attacks launched from Afghan soil comparable to 9/11.
But you know, Bin Laden was killed more than a decade ago. And in the last decade, I'm not sure anyone, including the military itself could answer clearly the question of what was the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, and what would success look like.
CHURCH: Susan Glasser, thank you so much for joining us, and of course, for your analysis. I appreciate it.
GLASSER: Thank you.
CHURCH: The European Union is offering to boost aid to Afghanistan and its neighbors, but the block sharply divided when it comes to offering asylum to evacuees. Meanwhile, the U.N. is vowing to stay in Afghanistan amid the deepening humanitarian crisis.
Atika Shubert joins me now from near Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The base is of course housing Afghan refugees. Good to see you, Atika.
So, the overall reaction to these Afghan refugees seems to be that everyone wants to help them, but no one wants to host them. What's the latest on the plight of these evacuees as they wait for a permanent home?
ATIKA SHUBERT, JOURNALIST: I think that's absolutely right, Rosemary. And sadly, it's not a new problem at all as we have seen in previous waves of refugees. What we see now is that the United States will take in the vast majority of those evacuated out with the military evacuation of Afghanistan.
However, that is still a slow process. What we have seen here at the Ramstein Air Base, is this is where more than 20,000 were evacuated to. And it was supposed to be a transition in and out in less than 48 hours. But the reality has become that many are waiting here much longer.
The good news is that flights out to the U.S. bringing evacuees have picked up pace. We've now seen 51 flights leaving, taking more than 11,000 evacuees to the U.S. That's good. That's picked up a lot in the last few days. The bad news is, that there are still more than 10,000 evacuees living temporarily in this sprawling tent city that stretches across the tarmac on the Ramstein Air Base. And they're very basic conditions there.
Now, what was supposed to be 48 hours has turned out much longer. I personally know one evacuee who I've been communicating with inside who is now been waiting for more than 10 days. That is the maximum that evacuees are supposed to be in transit here in Germany. He is still waiting to get on a flight to the U.S.
And even when you get on a flight to the U.S., it doesn't mean that you can walk out and start your new life or rejoin your family that's waiting for you there, an evacuee that I interviewed and have communicated with since he landed at Dulles airport in Virginia, waited for hours at the airport with his wife and children, and then were put into another 10th encampment in Virginia there.
So, it's not as easy as just picking up as going to U.S. and starting afresh. For many evacuees, even though the last flight has left from Afghanistan, it's still a long and painstaking process to start your new life as an evacuee even if you get to the destination where you are supposed to be setting up, Rosemary.
CHURCH: That is a very difficult reality being face there. Atika Shubert, many thanks for bringing us up to date on those details.
And for ways you can help Afghan refugees, just visit our web site at cnn.com/impact.
And still to come, as the COVID crisis in the U.S. gets worse, the CDC is warning against unnecessary travel with a holiday weekend approaching.
Plus, as the U.S. Gulf Coast begins a long recovery from Hurricane Ida, the storm system is bringing a new threat to other parts of the country. We'll take a look.
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CHURCH: With crystal clear waters and usually lush green mountains, Lake Tahoe should be a major tourist draw right now. But instead, more than 50,000 people are being told to evacuate. That's because the massive Caldor wildfire is threatening lives and homes along the Nevada-California voter.
All told, there are 13 large wildfires burning in California. Things are so bad the U.S. Forest Service has closed all national forests in the state.
And tropical depression Ida is now making its way towards the northeastern U.S. after slamming into the Gulf Coast as a category four hurricane on Sunday. Right now, flood watches are in effect from the Carolinas to Massachusetts, and parts of North Carolina and West Virginia have already declared states of emergency ahead of the storm.
Meanwhile, people in Louisiana and Mississippi are just beginning to pick up the pieces.
CNN's Ed Lavandera has our report.
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ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The water got up just above the floorboard.
DOMINIQUE THOMAS, RESIDENT, LAPLACE, LOUISIANA: Yes, just above the floorboard.
LAVANDERA: The day after Hurricane Ida wrecked Dominique Thomas's home, she's cleaning up the disaster. She says she has lived through many storms before, but this was different.
THOMAS: You can still just hear everything ripping and flying and banging. And people's roofs were coming off. And we just -- we prayed that we would all live.
LAVANDERA: And the emotions of experiencing Hurricane Ida's fury have caught up to the 32-year-old mother.
THOMAS: The most scariest thing that we ever did. It really was. Sitting there for so long, not knowing. The water is going to get. I don't think I'd ever stay again.
LAVANDERA: The day after Hurricane Ida ripped through southeast Louisiana, officials are warning residents across the region it will take considerable time to get life back to normal. There are more than a million customers without electricity and for many, it could take weeks to get the power restored. Water systems are down as well, and cell phone communication is spotty. The coming days and weeks will be long and hot.
JACLYN HOTARD, PRESIDENT, ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST PARISH, LOUISIANA: We are resilient group of people. This is going to be very difficult, worst disaster that we've all seen in St. John Parish. And it's going to take a long time.
LAVANDERA: In LaPlace residency, they were stunned by the intensity of the storm's winds and the structural damage it caused.
DEBBIE GRECO, RESIDENT, LAPLACE, LOUISIANA: It was horrible. It was -- the wind, I've never heard wind shake the house the way it did.
LAVANDERA: Debbie and Ronnie Greco say after four feet of water poured into their home. The roof started to collapse.
D. GRECO: The ceiling started caving in. That's when I really got scared, because it was like, my gosh, is the roof going to blow off. And we're going to be out, exposed.
LAVANDERA: Some of the hardest hit areas of southeast Louisiana are still nearly impossible to reach. This is what Grand Isle looks like. This video was captured by one of several dozen people who didn't evacuate and are now stuck on the barrier island.
THOMAS: It was seeping in from all the doors, all the closets.
LAVANDERA: Dominique Thomas is bracing for weeks of recovery, but she can't stop thinking about the eight brutal hours her family endured through this storm.
THOMAS: The doors were rocking back and forth. The windows were shaking. It was just a matter of time before you felt like everything was just kind of going to go flying right off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH (on camera): Well, the European Union is touting a significant milestone in its fight against COVID-19.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
URSULA VON DER LEYEN, PRESIDENT, EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Today, we reached an important milestone in our vaccination campaign. Seventy percent of adults in the European Union are now fully vaccinated. And that is more than 250 million people who are immunized. And this is a great achievement, which really shows what we can do when we work together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[03:25:09]
CHURCH (on camera): Very impressive. But the spread of vaccination in Europe is still uneven with Eastern Europe lagging way behind. And the WHO warns another 236,000 people could die from COVID by December.
Well, the CDC is advising those who are unvaccinated not to travel for the upcoming Labor Day holiday weekend in the United States. And given the recent surge in new infections and hospitalizations, they are warning even vaccinated people traveling this weekend are at potential risk.
CNN's Athena Jones has the latest on the coronavirus in the U.S. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HASAN KAKLI, REGIONAL MEDICAL DIRECTOR, CONCORD MEDICAL GROUP: We are in the worst crisis of the pandemic. We wish for 2020 again.
ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): With new COVID-19 cases battering the country, particularly in the less vaccinated south, overwhelmed hospitals reaching a breaking point. Mississippi, the hardest hit state, has just nine intensive care unit beds available.
JIM CRAIG, SENIOR DEPUTY & DIRECTOR, MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH: Our ICU capacity means affectively zero. At eight o'clock this morning, nine ICU beds were reported available.
JONES: And in five southern states, less than 10 percent of ICU beds are free. Kentucky hospitals are seeing a record number of COVID patients and critical staffing shortages.
GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D-KY): We're living in reality where some COVID patients that are sick are being treated in their cars, where there isn't room for them inside the E.R. or in the hospital.
JONES: New COVID cases nationwide now average nearly 160,000 a day. And more than 100,000 people are hospitalized, nearly all of them unvaccinated, say health officials. It's a message that may finally be reaching more people. A new Axios/Ipsos poll shows just one in five people say they aren't likely to get the vaccine, down from 34 percent in March.
Experts say vaccination is key to prevent the spread of new variants. But the CDC says less than half of children ages 12 to 15 have gotten at least one dose. Even as COVID cases and kids skyrocket, more than 200,000 testing positive last week according to the American Academy of Pediatrics up fivefold from a month ago.
KATHLEEN TOOMEY, COMMISSIONER, GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH: We've seen however the highest number of weekly outbreaks since the pandemic began. A 170 outbreaks statewide, with more than half of these outbreaks in K through 12 schools.
JONES: All this raising the stakes in the debate over masking in schools. Florida officials now following through on the governor's promise to withhold the salaries of school board officials in Broward and Alachua Counties after they implemented mask mandates. While in Lee County, the battle over masks got physical.
UNKNOWN: So, as you can see, fists are now flying. All of this on live television.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: And when it comes to overwhelmed hospitals, one Texas doctor telling CNN the intensive care unit at his hospital was so strain, they had to downgrade two ICU patients who are so sick enough to need intensive care, because there were two other patients who were sicker and needed the beds more. So, they're making decisions they never had to make before.
Athena Jones, CNN, New York.
CHURCH: Researchers are conducting tests on a COVID variant in South Africa known as C.1.2. The variant has been detected in at least eight countries. Scientists are testing to see how well it can be neutralized by antibodies. They say it has many of the same hallmarks as other strains, but so far, they are not sure whether it's more contagious.
And still to come, after the U.S. withdrawal, Afghans hoping to cross into neighboring Pakistan are facing major obstacles. We will show you what's happening at the border crossing. That's next.
Plus, aid agencies are warning Afghanistan's health care system is on the verge of collapse. We will have more on that just ahead.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: For those remaining Americans, there is no deadline. We remain committed to get them out if they want to come out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR (on camera): It's just past noon in Kabul, Afghanistan, where the Taliban are now facing the harsh reality of governing the country's 38 million people. And one of their main concerns is reopening and securing Hamid Karzai International Airport. Afghanistan relies heavily on foreign aid, and with no flights landing, the U.N. secretary general is warning of a looming humanitarian catastrophe.
While Taliban fighters inspect the airport and the U.S. military equipment they left behind, the U.N. says one in three Afghans don't know where their next meal is coming from, and more than half of the country's young children are expected to become acutely malnourished in the next year.
Well, meantime, Afghans hoping to cross into neighboring Pakistan at the border crossing are not having much luck. Pakistan says it simply can't handle any more refugees right now.
CNN's Clarissa Ward is at the Pakistan Afghan border with the details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): We are here at the border crossing that separates Pakistan from Afghanistan, and you can see behind me a lot of Taliban fighters. They're standing here under the white Taliban flag. That is the official flag at this border crossing. Now, what you are not seeing a lot of it, if you come over here with me, are people getting into Pakistan. This is the line of Afghans who are waiting to get into Pakistan, but only people who have Pakistani documents, or residency are being allowed in at this stage.
And that has been a rule that's been in place for a few months now, partly because of COVID regulations, partly because Pakistan says it can't cope with the flow of refugees. Now, if you look over here just behind me, you can see this grouping here, of people who are very sick.
I want to draw your attention to a particularly serious looking woman with a young boy. He has some kind of bandages with blood on them on his lap. And these people are basically appealing to Pakistan for immediate medical attention, some people have been allowed through to go to hospitals, but basically, what Pakistan is saying now is we have more than 1 million Afghan refugees, and we simply can't cope with anymore.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Well, many Afghans who spent years working to improve their country have now had to leave their homes and their dreams behind, becoming refugees in a foreign land.
Barbie Nadeau spoke to some of them.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBIE LATZA NADEAU, CNN CONTRIBUTOR (voice over): It wasn't supposed to end like this. Despite years of warnings that the United States would someday and their mission in Afghanistan, those who held the future of this country in their hands are devastated.
Doctor Arif is a two-time refugee. He first fled Afghanistan in 1993, when he was 32 years old. Walking for weeks to reach safety in Pakistan, and eventually moved to Italy. This time, he was forced to leave. He went back in 2006 with the Italian Development Agency to rebuild his country. They worked on infrastructure and roads. They build hospitals and trained medical staff.
Over the last 20 years lost?
[03:35:00]
ARIF, ITALIAN DEVELOPMENT AND COOPERATION AGENCY (through translator): It's not that we've lost everything, but the way we have abandoned them. This is more difficult and more painful. We have to many, many things, but we should not have abandoned them in this way.
NADEAU: Arianna Brigante is the vice chairperson with the Italian agency, Nove Onlus, which worked in Afghanistan over the last decade to empower women. The group set up a woman's driving school in Kabul, and provided a shuttle service so women could get from work and school, home safely. ARIANNA BRIGANTE, VICE CHAIRPERSON, NOVE ONLUS: It was a hopeful
generation. And I think we lost that. I mean, people that I have been working with for such a long time, and even the one that my organization manage to evacuate, they are hopeless. They don't think there is a future in Afghanistan anymore.
Amina, not her real name works for Nove Onlus. She tried three times to get to the Kabul airport before finally using a red flag to signal Italian soldiers who brought her to safety. She fears for those she left behind, but she knows her work was not in vain.
AMINA, WORKS FOR NOVE ONLUS: I am proud of all the times, all the work that we have done by our organization that we have done there. Since all of our projects were related to women in parliament, women education and development.
NADEAU: Captain Luca of the Italian Air Force flew the first Italian evacuation mission out of Kabul on August 15. Even though so much has changed since then, with security threats and a deadly suicide bombing, he will never forget the people he brought to safety, or those he left behind.
CAPTAIN LUCA, ITALIAN AIR FORCE: It was a challenge for everybody, but when you finally land there, and you realize just one second there, you'll look and (inaudible) you feel like you need something very good. And you really can see the hope in their eyes. You know, and it has been a long route for everybody. But now, we are just getting home and they are going to work something new, a very new kind of life.
NADEAU: Many of those who left Afghanistan hope to go back one day, but like Dr. Arif, they are worried that once the last flight from Kabul leaves, they will forget about this country.
ARIF (through translator): Don't forget about Afghanistan. Afghanistan needs it, not the government. Now it's about the Afghan population that needs help. They don't have to die from disease, from hunger, from lack of medicine.
NADEAU: Will the world? Listen Barbara Latza Nadeau, CNN, Rome.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Political upheaval in Afghanistan has worsen the country's humanitarian situation according to UNICEF, at the start of this year they were more than 18 million Afghans in need of humanitarian assistance, including nearly 10 million children. And they report that since the end of May, the number of displaced persons more than doubled to 558,000 more than half of those are children.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan's health care system is at risk of collapsing, according to the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres or Doctors Without Borders, they say it's because foreign aid was cut out after the Taliban took power. International donors including the World Bank and the E.U. have frozen funding for the country. And joining me now is Gaetan Drossart, the Medecins Sans Frontieres
operations coordinator for Afghanistan. Thank you so much for talking with us.
GAETAN DROSSART, MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES OPERATIONS COORDINATOR FOR AFGHANISTAN: Hi. (Inaudible).
CHURCH: So your organization is warning now that Afghanistan's health care system is at risk of collapsing, because international donors have frozen funding, since the Taliban took over. So, describe to us the dire situation on the ground right now for so many Afghans?
DROSSART: Well, first, indeed, we have continued our medical services to the population and interpreted in five provinces. And what we see is that we have an increase in the number of patient coming to our structure. Patients that are in need of emergency medical services for allies because of car accidents, for instance, or because they are suffering, like a lot of children over there in Afghanistan have about acute malnutrition. So we see an increase in our project. In Iraq, particularly and in Afghanistan of children in critical conditions coming to our therapeutic feeding center.
We see also a lot of women, coming into our structure to deliver safely. Sometimes with complications. So this is the case particularly in (inaudible). We have in this two structures, around hundred women coming to deliver in our structure. So, this really reflects the need in Afghanistan.
CHURCH: And what are the major challenges that Medecins Sans Frontieres facing right now, in trying to help medically with a lot of these people?
[03:40:06]
DROSSART: You mentioned the concern about the collapse of the health system. So, Afghanistan is a country that was relying a lot on money coming from abroad, and it's particularly the case for the health ministry and the health system. So today what we see is that, there is a lot of factors that are leaving the country when we speak about international factors but also having to stop their activities when we speak about national factors.
The health minister was working physically with implementing partners to deliver the care to the population, because of the lack of money, because of the lack of funding they will have to stop their activities. And we have seen that in our project locations that more patients are coming to us because they have nowhere else to go, basically.
CHURCH: So, what do you need mostly is funding here clearly to prop up the health care system there in Afghanistan. Hopefully, the Kabul airport can be back up and running soon, with more medical and food supplies coming in. But then this enormous humanitarian need on the ground, talk to us about how concerned you would be, if funds are given, could they end up in the hands of the Taliban and not where they need to be, which is with the health care system there? DROSSART: I think we have to be clear on the fact that the population
basically having their daily life is the one suffering for the lack of services delivered to them. And we as a (inaudible) -- I am not relying on donor's money. So we work on proper forms, but we are showing that it is possible to work having assurances from the new power in place. And deliver impartial healthcare to the population.
We have been asked to continue our services. We are not so far facing pressure by the new authorities. Our staff is able to come to work, is able to come to the head facilities and provide the health care to the population. Including woman, so it is possible to work. And I would say that the donors, and the other organizations who face the same challenges than before basically and that we have to place such more money to the system in order to make sure that the money is arriving to the population. But what the main message is that the health care needs to continue uninterrupted.
CHURCH: So what do you need from the international community right now?
DROSSART: Do not turn their back to Afghanistan. To continue supporting the country. Again, it's a country that was heavily relying on money coming from abroad. And if this does not continue, some kind of support, the population will be the one suffering from it, and that we cannot let that happen, basically.
CHURCH: An important message there from Gaetan Drossart, with Medecins Sans Frontieres. Many thanks for joining us, we appreciate it.
DROSSART: Thank you.
CHURCH: And just ahead here on CNN, before her death, an Afghan YouTuber talked of being too scared to leave her home in Kabul, but drastic changes she noticed after the Taliban takeover. When we return.
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[03:45:00]
CHURCH: Despite promises from the Taliban, life has radically changed for women in Afghanistan. One Afghan YouTube star described how scared she was to even leave her home before being killed in the terror attack at Kabul's International Airport.
CNN's Jomana Karadsheh has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNKNOWN (through translator): Since we're not allowed to work or go out of our homes, we all had to record new video for you. And through this video, to say goodbye to you all and ask you to keep us in your prayers.
JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): This was Najma Sadeqi goodbye video to thousands of her followers. A goodbye to the only way of life this 20-year-old Afghan YouTube star has ever known. For Najma generation of Afghan women, life under the Taliban was a story of the past.
Just days before the fall of her city, Najma was on the streets of Kabul. You could easily think this trio of YouTubers reporters and their bright, fashionable clothes, were out on the streets of another modern city like Dubai or Doha. Smiling, giggling, just having fun. (Inaudible) was doing what she loved the most. Reporting on daily life in her beloved city. Four days after the fall of Kabul, she recorded this video.
NAJMA SADEQI, AFGHAN YOUTUBER (through translator): Life in Kabul has become very difficult, especially for those who used to be free and happy. We are all inside our homes and we do not have the ability and courage to go outside, to go back to work, to go back to our universities. We are no longer able to record programs and study despite what they are saying that they don't have any problems with girls that girls can seek education, go to University and go to work. But we've heard about their past. We can no longer trust them to go back to University or work, with a kind of courage we used to have.
KARADSHEH: Najma was starting to become a journalist. In her final year at Kabul Journalism Institute she joined the Afghan Insider YouTube channel, a job she clearly loved. But it was more than just that.
SADEQI (through translator): Most of the families in the city are just waiting for one meal a day to survive now. I was working to make enough to pay for my daily expenses and for my education. Like me, there were other girls who are the breadwinners of their entire families. They were the ones who didn't have an older brother or father to provide for them. But now, they are at home waiting for the situation to get better.
Dear friend, I don't have the ability to talk any longer and I can't see anymore. Just pray for us. Pray for us that we don't go too far away from our hopes and dreams. And we can become the girls we were before. That we can be happy again. Wear the clothes we loved again.
KARADSHEH: But as her world collapsed, she had to get out before it was too late. In desperation, Najma, her brother and cousin joined thousands of others at the Kabul airport, trying to escape a life without much hope. They never made it out. The three were among the more than 170 lives lost in Thursday's murderous attack. The haunting words in her goodbye video, now more than just a farewell to freedom.
SADEQI (through translator): I wish it is a bad dream. I wish we can wake up one day, or someone wakes up saying, drink a glass of water. You had a bad dream. But I know that it is not possible. And it is a reality that we are finished.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: That was Jomana Karadsheh reporting there. Still to come on "CNN Newsroom." Iraq tries out a new role as regional
mediator. We will see whether the country has what it takes to bring its neighbors together.
[03:50:05]
Plus, a group of bank robbers wreak havoc in Brazil. The shocking tactics they used to try to avoid capture. We'll be back in just a moment.
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CHURCH: A peaceful Middle East depends on a stable Iraq. That is the thought behind a recent summit in Baghdad. The event included officials from France, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Iran. There were a few breakthroughs, but the fact that so many came to the table is noteworthy.
CNN's Becky Anderson, has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It's a site rarely seen in the Middle East. Regional leaders, smiling and posing alongside each other, at a cooperation summit organized by Iraq. In attendance, leaders of Jordan, Egypt and Qatar, along with delegations from Kuwait, Turkey, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Iran, all sitting at the same table. French President Emmanuel Macron had helped organize the gathering, went so far as to describe it as historic.
PRES. EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT OF FRANCE (through translator): We managed to get everybody around the table. Heads of states, head of government, ministers, so that all these countries that at times are not speaking to each other anymore can cooperate a new, to find solutions together for the region.
ANDERSON: One organizers were quick to play down chances of diplomatic breakthroughs, scenes like these, Iran's new foreign minister casually chatting with Egypt's President Sisi. Or Dubai's ruler, shake Muhammad bin Rashid, meeting with the Emir of Qatar, Sheik Tamim bin Hamad, referring to him as a brother and friend were clear diplomatic wins for Iraqi leaders.
BARHAM SALIH, IRAQI PRESIDENT (through translator): This is the Iraq that for years has been the headline of war in conflict. This is the Baghdad of today where leaders and representatives of the region gather together to affirm their support for Iraq's sovereignty and prosperity.
ANDERSON: For years, Iraq has been the place where rivals such as Iran and Saudi Arabia settle scores. But now, Baghdad once to emerge as the setting for diplomacy. Hoping de-escalation across the region can help its own stability and strength at home.
MUSTAFA AL-KADHIMI, IRAQI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): This conference is held at a critical and historic situation. It embodies Iraq's vision for establishing better relations with other countries. And our pledge to our people that Iraq will reclaim its leading role in the region.
ANDERSON: Becky Anderson, CNN, Abu Dhabi.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: We are tracking a shocking series of bank heists in a Brazilian city. A gang of heavily armed robbers tied hostages to their getaway cars, using them as human shields.
CNN's Rafael Romo reports that was just part of their terrifying rampage.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR: It sounds like something out of a movie, but it happened in reality. And the video CNN has obtained from Brazilian authorities is shocking. It shows innocent civilians, strapped to cars, they were tied up by robbers who carried out a series of deadly bank heists. Using those civilians as human shields.
[03:55:02]
This happened in the city of Aracatuba, located in Sao Paulo state Brazil. Police say very early Monday morning, the robbers first positioned bombs all over the city to distract officers so that they could rob the banks. The bombs were detonated and tragically, one of them caused serious injury to a man who lost both of his feet in the blast, according to authorities. Police say that while this was happening, the criminals hit three different banks at the same time, taking multiple people hostage.
Then they tied the hostages to the roof and hoods of 10 cars, to be used as human shields. Altogether, officials say three people died including two hostages and one suspected rubber. There were five other people injured and two suspects were detained by police. More than 380 police officers were subsequently deployed. As part of an operation to catch more than a dozen suspects who remain at large. And classes were suspended at schools around the city for the day.
Rafael Romo, CNN, Mexico City.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: It is day eight at the Tokyo Paralympics. And China leads the medal count with more than 130 so far, with the U.K. a distant second. Fifteen medals are up for grabs in swimming, with Columbian world champion (inaudible), defending his 2016 Rio Paralympic title in the 100 meter breaststroke SP7 in the coming hours. And we will also see the men's 100 meter tea 53 wheelchair race with Canadian world record holder Brent Lakatos leading the pack.
And we are following new developments. A controversial Texas law banning abortions at six weeks of pregnancy is now in effect. The U.S. Supreme Court and a Federal Appeals Court refused to rule on emergency challenges. The law is one of the strictest in the country and bans abortions before most women even know they are pregnant.
The law allows private citizens to bring civil suits against anyone who assists a pregnant woman seeking an abortion in violation of the ban. The Supreme Court is set to rule next month on a similar Mississippi law that bans abortion at 15 weeks. And we will continue to follow this story, so do stay with us here on CNN.
And thank you so much for being with us this hour. I'm Rosemary Church. I'll have more news for you in just a moment.
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