News

(HAITI) — Luria Civil’s wails could be heard outside of the cemetery. As shovels scraped dirt onto her daughter’s grave, she chanted and sobbed.

She lost two children after Saturday’s 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti. Her house had collapsed on top of her and her family, she told ABC News. She, her husband, and her severely wounded son, who was medevacked to port au Prince, survived. But she still had to dig her two other children, now lifeless, out of the rubble.

The scenes across Haiti are devastating. Coffins strapped to the backs of motorbikes are being driven out of earthquake battered villages. Boulders the size of bulldozers are blocking roads. Landslides following Tropical Storm Grace have reshaped the landscape, mutating sides of mountains.

The death toll in Haiti, now at 1,941, keeps climbing, according to the Haiti Office of Civil Protection. While search and rescue teams on the ground keep pushing forward, hoping to find more survivors and provide much needed medical help, ABC News reports that thousands are still sleeping under tents, surgeries are being performed outdoors and hospitals in rural areas are in desperate need of the basics, including water, electricity, gloves and donated blood.

While Saturday’s earthquake is not as devastating as the 2010 earthquake, which killed more than 200,000 people, Haiti is facing multiple crises as the same time. The country has been reeling from the assassination of its president, leaving the government politically unstable. The coronavirus vaccination rate is less than 0.1%. And experts say gang violence is at its worst in two decades, according to the Associated Press.

Following the earthquake, United States response teams were activated, but due to the tropical storm, they had to suspend their critical operations on Monday, according to U.S. Agency for International Development Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs Assistant Administrator Sarah Charles.

“The safety and security of our partners and our operations is of the utmost importance, but our top priority really is getting assistance and assistance at scale to people,” Charles said. She later added that “the [Disaster Assistance Response Team] is now on the ground working to urgently assess needs and deliver life-saving assistance.”

Both USAID DART and the elite Fairfax County’s Urban Search and Rescue team are now on the ground in Haiti, helping local and international efforts to provide food, medical care, shelter, and search and rescue efforts.

The number of injured and homeless keeps rising, too, according to the Haitian agency. More than 9,900 people have been injured, and even more are left homeless. The earthquake left much of the countryside damaged, destroying more than 7,000 homes and damaging nearly 5,000.

The teams on the ground said they haven’t rescued any people still alive and trapped in buildings.

“We have not yet since found any signs of persons alive trapped in buildings,” John Morrison, the public information officer for Fairfax County’s Urban Search and Rescue team, said on Tuesday’s media call. He caveated his statement by adding that in previous earthquakes, his rescue team has managed to save people 8-10 days after a building collapse.

Getting supplies to the people of Haiti is a priority, officials said.

As of Tuesday evening, “the U.S. Coast Guard has flown 72 sorties [trips], saved 67 people, and assisted 89 people,” according to a USAID spokesperson. “They have also transported 143 medical and search and rescue staff, including members of the USAID DART, and 5,500 pounds of medical supplies into the area.”

“Food, healthcare services, safe drinking water, hygiene and sanitation, and shelter are all priority needs,” Morrison added.

Following the 2010 earthquake, USAID has been working closely with partners on the ground in Haiti for years to make sure local response capabilities can be immediately activated in case another disaster strikes, including being able to immediately provide food and types of shelter, officials said. Charles indicated that this pre-planning allowed USAID local partners to respond quickly following Saturday’s earthquake.

While USAID is already working with international organizations to provide significant humanitarian needs in Haiti, they hope to receive more help in the upcoming days and weeks, according to Charles.

The Pentagon announced Monday that eight U.S. military helicopters would be sent to assist in Haiti. Two U.S. Navy ships, seven more Coast Guard cutters, two reconnaissance aircraft, and four field hospitals are also being sent. This military equipment arrived on Wednesday morning, officials said.

This isn’t the first crisis Haiti has faced this summer. Just last month, President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated, which left the country in a political upheaval.

“We continue to work closely with Haiti’s interim government to assist with the investigation into the assassination,” State Department’s Western Hemisphere Affairs Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Laura Lochman said on a media briefing call Tuesday. She also emphasized the U.S. government’s support in finding and creating Haitian-led solutions that are in the interest of the Haitian people.

“The United States stands ready to offer all appropriate assistance, and we’ll continue to work closely with our Haitian partners to determine how we can best support recovery efforts,” Lochman later added.

While teams on the ground are working non-stop, there just isn’t enough aid to go around.

“It’s just pure chaos,” Canadian paramedic Brian Johnston told ABC News. Johnston said he and Haitian medics know that if anyone has a cardiac arrest or internal bleeding in rural, countryside towns, “they’ll die here.”

Luria Civil took ABC News to what was left of her house. During the walk, she pointed to her neighbors’ homes, now all flattened. A set of twins were killed in the house next door.

A crowd had gathered around her home. When asked where they were sleeping, they all said, “outside on the street.”

ABC News’ Conor Finnegan, Luis Martinez, Matt Gutman, and Brandon Baur contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(KABUL, Afghanistan) — It was on the third attempt that “Khan,” his pregnant wife and their 3-year old son made to get to Kabul’s international airport — the most harrowing yet, but finally successful.

Khan, whose real name ABC News is not using for his security, made it on a U.S. military flight out of Afghanistan on Wednesday, according to his U.S. lawyer, fleeing the Taliban takeover and the threats its fighters had made against him for years because of his service to the U.S.

Tens of thousands of Afghans remain behind in anguish and fear. The Biden administration has promised to evacuate “as many Afghans as we possibly can for as long as we can,” in the words of State Department spokesperson Ned Price, but the task remains immense and chaotic — not least because Taliban fighters continue to block access to the airport.

It’s unclear how many Afghans the administration is committed to evacuating, where they be brought to safety and who qualifies for a coveted seat on military and chartered flights.

Khan, a computer scientist by training who worked for a U.S. defense contractor alongside his brother “Mohammad,” had spent years waiting for a special immigrant visa.

After waiting 10 years for a visa, Mohammad finally learned last December that he was granted approval. Less than a month later, he was gunned down on his way to work, his 10-year old son by his side in the car. Khan was supposed to travel with them but had to run errands that morning in January.

He has spent recent months in hiding, receiving death threats by phone and text message and waiting for his family’s special immigrant visas to be finalized. On Saturday, hours before the U.S. Embassy in Kabul closed its doors, he and his family were able to pick up their visas.

But that is only half the battle. For U.S. citizens and Afghans with visas, reaching the airport and getting inside has been a nearly impossible task.

The State Department has informed a tranche of American citizens and Afghan visa holders to travel to the airport, warning in capital letters that they “cannot guarantee your security as you make this trip,” according to the embassy email notice.

Khan and his family made their first attempt on Sunday and tried again Tuesday, but there were too many Taliban fighters pushing back crowds to even get close.

On Wednesday, they tried a different approach, nearing a gate on the north side, only to encounter U.S. troops trying to disperse crowds by shooting into the air and using tear gas, according to Khan’s U.S. lawyer Julie Kornfeld from the International Refugee Assistance Project, who was FaceTiming with him during the episode.

IRAP has filed several petitions to order the State Department to evacuate all Afghans who have applied for special immigrant visas and their families — some 100,000 Afghans in total, the legal advocacy group estimates.

“The timing could not be more urgent. Now that the Afghan government has collapsed and the Talban have taken over, time is quickly running out. We need to get as many people on flights out of the country before it is too late, and the U.S. has a legal and a moral obligation to do so,” said Becca Heller, IRAP’s executive director.

Heller called on the U.S. government to secure safe passage to Kabul’s airport for Americans and Afghans like Khan. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Tuesday that the U.S. had an agreement with the Taliban to ensure safe passage, but several Afghans on the ground have told ABC News they have been blocked. In some cases, Taliban fighters beat back crowds with chains or by firing sporadic gunfire into the air.

But with their visas in hand, Khan and his family were determined to get through to the airport, according to Kornfeld, who told ABC News, “Ultimately, it was his persistence that got them in.”

In the hours when it seemed like it wouldn’t happen, Kornfeld said they considered other options, including Khan leaving his pregnant wife and son behind to see if he could push ahead and come back to get them — an agonizing decision, she said.

“It’s a dynamic situation. Things are rapidly changing on the ground, and one client’s success story of where the access points are is not going to hold up,” Kornfeld added.

Once inside, the process was more efficient, she added, with two of her clients and their families on flights within 30 minutes of entering the airport and being processed. Sullivan said Tuesday that since the U.S. military was able to secure the airport late Monday, more evacuation flights have been flowing in “one after another, hot unloading and hot offloading,” he told reporters.

But outside the airport, chaos continues to reign.

An alert from the U.S. embassy late Wednesday advised U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, or green card holders, they “should consider” travelling to the airport — sparking crowds of people rushing there again.

Crowds broke into the compound on Monday, rushing the tarmac and surrounding a U.S. military aircraft that was preparing for takeoff. Several civilians died in the incident, and the U.S. military eventually had to clear 15,000 people from the tarmac, according to a defense official.

“The unwillingness of the U.S. government to protect our allies after they sacrificed their safety and in many cases their lives is a historically unprecedented failure that only a sustained attempt to hold the airport and meaningfully evacuate people can begin to remedy,” said Heller.

The U.S. has surged diplomatic personnel, doubling the number of consular officers and dispatching former ambassador to Afghanistan John Bass to the airport to coordinate the chaotic evacuation effort even as all but a core team from the U.S. embassy were evacuated from the compound Tuesday.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(KABUL, Afghanistan) — Sitting in a Taliban press conference Tuesday was a thoroughly surreal moment to cap seven long days of almost unimaginable firsts.

This time two weeks ago, I was reporting from London on the Taliban assaulting three major cities. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley was saying that while the Taliban seemed to have the “strategic momentum,” their victory wasn’t certain.

This time a week ago, still marooned in London, I foolishly told Amy Robach on “Good Morning America” that it was hard to imagine a worse picture in Afghanistan as the Taliban seized their ninth provincial capital.

On Tuesday, I joined hundreds of local journalists packed into the hall of the Afghan media center in Kabul as the enigmatic Zabihullah Mujahid descended the stairs in hushed silence to hold the Taliban’s first public press conference in almost 20 years.

Anyone who’s been following events in Afghanistan will know of him. He has over 300,000 followers on Twitter. Anyone who has reported on the country has probably spoken to him on the phone. Yet, every call seemed to be with a different sounding Mujahid to the point where many wondered if he really existed or whether it was just a pseudonym for any Taliban spokesman.

But Tuesday, the somber-looking, black-turbaned voice of the militants had his coming out presser.

There are many known unknowns here, to borrow a phrase from the recently departed U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who famously turned down a Taliban offer to surrender in December 2001.

The first and most-pressing question went to a female journalist from Al Jazeera English. Mujahid clearly understands the optics, even if someone had to nudge him to receive her question first. Most women and girls are in effect confined to their homes right now — at least half the population too afraid to go out. Just let that sink in.

“What assurances can you give to women and girls that their rights will be protected?” the reporter asked.

“Women will be afforded all their rights,” Mujahid said. “Whether it is at work or other activities, because women are a key part of society, and we are guaranteeing all their rights.”

And then came the all important caveat, “Within the limits of Islam.”

He was asked more than once about this key issue, and for good reason given the militants’ appalling track record on blocking girls from schools, women from the workplace and even dictating that they can only leave home with a male family member and must be fully clad in the oppressive, all-encompassing burqa.

He was never more specific about what he is promising other than vague assurances that fail to inspire confidence. But the militants know they have a small window to prove to the country and the world that they have changed.

I was speaking Tuesday evening to a diplomat from a Middle Eastern nation with some influence here. He said they have been trying to impress on the Taliban that you can be a good Muslim country and women can enjoy full rights. He said they had been told that if you just say “haram, haram, haram” (meaning “forbidden”) all the time to people, then you will drive them away from Islam. But he also conceded the Taliban mindset will take a lot of adjusting.

Mujahid said clearly, “The ideology is the same,” but added they have learned from experience. The militants have been in public relations overdrive since taking power over the weekend. They have said they will protect all minorities. They have met with the country’s small Sikh community and reached out to the Shia Hazara community with guarantees they won’t interfere with them.

They issued a general amnesty on Tuesday, inviting women to take part in public life. A spokesman said he doesn’t want women to be victims and instructed fighters not to enter people’s homes. Foreigners are welcome to stay; they want good relations with the outside world.

In summary, the Taliban is giving every impression they have changed without giving meaningful specifics on how. To be fair, they seized power even faster than they expected but they have also had years to formulate a meaningful posture on key issues. The political leadership that has been in exile for years and now moved back to Afghanistan has certainly given lip service to lessons learned. But its fighters often have an unreconstructed view and areas they have controlled for some time suggests there are many reasons to worry.

I asked about the Afghan special immigrant visa applicants, the people who risked their lives to help the U.S.-led mission here. Thousands of them have been promised flights out but many of them are also trapped at home in fear with no means to get to the airport, even if there were flights ready for them. Some Taliban checkpoints are only allowing foreigners through and these men and women rightly fear for their lives.

“We are assuring the safety of all those who have worked with the United States and allied forces whether as interpreters or any other field that they have worked with them,” he told me. Again, no specifics on how they would be allowed to get to the airport.

No discussion on burqas for women or beards for men. We were told that this will be resolved by the new government (or emirate).

The first time I came to Kabul was on foot and bicycle in November 2001. It still stands as a journalistic high witnessing the liberation of an entire city. Women threw back the veil for the camera proclaiming their freedom, men shaved their beards, music was played and the capital celebrated.

In the 20 years since then, the city has been transformed and around half the population has never known life under the Taliban. But today there is a darkness and a sadness that has descended. The young women on the hotel reception have disappeared. The music has stopped playing and Afghans now wait with more sadness than hope to see whether the future is going to be as awful as the past.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.