The image of the Afghans on the American plane... pure good or a permanent reminder of a tragic escape

About 640 managed to board the plane on the famous Sunday, while its normal load did not exceed 134 passengers.

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More than 600 Afghans, including women and children, some of whom found a seat and some of them squatted, turned into a mass of people cohesive on the floor of a US military plane that was able to transport them from Kabul after the Taliban movement took control of the city.

On social media, a picture spread of these people, some carrying luggage and some feeding infants on a C-17 cargo plane.

About 640 were able to board the plane on the famous Sunday when thousands of hopefuls flocked to the airport hoping to escape, a US official told Reuters.

"The huge number of passengers was the result of a rapidly developing security environment that necessitated an urgent decision by the crew, which ultimately led to the rapid transfer of these passengers outside the country," he added.

Boeing says the C-17 Globemaster 3 has 134 passengers, 54 seats on both sides, and 80 on small platforms on the ground.

Many climbed onto the fuselage of the plane through a ladder with a door that was not fully opened, before taking off to Qatar with one of the largest passenger loads ever on these planes, according to the American Defense One website for defense and security news.

Reuters was not immediately able to verify these details.

Other distressing videos and photos emerged from Kabul airport, where witnesses say people have died, and footage and photos show people clinging to the landing gear area of ​​the plane's fuselage in desperate attempts to escape.

The pictures inside the plane were, in the eyes of some observers, a sign of hope and evidence of the courage of the crew.

"Despite all the failures this week, there is some pure good in this photo," said Blake Herzinger, a Singapore-based security analyst, who shared the photo on Twitter.

But others believe that the image will remain in the memory as a witness to the tragedy of the catastrophic evacuation from Afghanistan, after Washington withdrew its forces after a 20-year war to bring the Taliban to power in days and not months, as US intelligence had expected.

"We need a lot more of these planes," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

• The image will remain in memory as a witness to the tragedy of the catastrophic evacuation from Afghanistan, after Washington withdrew its forces after a 20-year war so that the "Taliban" seized power in days, not months.

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