World

Inside the purgatory where Afghans are trying to take the longest three steps in the world

Published

4 years ago

August 22, 2021

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It’s only a gate. A big, reinforced iron gate protected by paratroopers, but nevertheless it is just a gate.

On one side a rocky drive leads to a complex of apartments and offices and tree-lined streets filled with evacuees.

On the other side, it is a vision of misery.

There is a dusty, rubbish strewn street filled with thousands of people desperate to take the three steps needed to cross the threshold to the Hamid Karzai International Airport and sanctuary.

Right now it’s the longest three steps in the world.

For the hopeful they are stuck in a sort of purgatory.

Day, night, it makes no difference – in their thousands they have to wait, sleeping rough and hoping for news.

Hoping they can get into the system, a system that can get them out of Afghanistan.

The truth is most of them probably won’t because they don’t have the right paperwork.

At night we walk past thousands of children, parents and grandparents grabbing sleep where they can or basically passing out from exhaustion. The struggle never stops.

The soldiers do their best to help, but there is no food out here and little water.

Thankfully, it is cooler at night. But when the sun comes up the true horror of the conditions these people are living in is obvious, and it is absolutely dreadful.

In the American section of the processing chain, they are penned in behind cement road blocks and guarded by hundreds of armed, sunglass-wearing US Marines.

The heightened security threat alert identified by the Americans means there’s no movement allowed at all.

There is no shade here, only what can be fashioned from scarves and plastic bags.

Soldiers are slowly trying to work through paperwork belonging to thousands of people but the conditions of entry to the United States are getting stricter and more and more are failing the eligibility test.

Even those who have been contacted by the State Department to go to the airport for a flight out have been denied.

We met one woman, a worker for USAID, who struggled through the crowds for a day with her family and elderly mother.

She got through the gate, had her documents checked by multiple US soldiers, spent the night outside sleeping without any food or water, and once she got to the final step, was told the flight was only for American passport holders.

Instead of putting her family in a separate section of the crowd, the American soldiers threw them out of the airport complex.

They now have to run the gauntlet – again – if they can bear to.

At the British end of the process, the paratrooper and Taliban cooperation is actually working quite well. They are at least communicating.

You couldn’t make it up – Taliban fighters oversee the crowds from sea containers the paras put in a couple of days ago to create a screening barrier.

Containing the crowds is vital here and clearing up this evacuation mess requires some pretty lateral thinking and that means working with the “enemy”.

Obviously after 20 years of fighting this is something of a culture shock for the soldiers but also the Taliban.

The commanding officer of 3 Para, who have been brought in to assist in the crisis, said it was a simple fact that if the paratroopers weren’t there to do it “nobody else would”.

“The main thing for us is to make sure that we have a smooth system to get those entitled people through,” Lt Col Will Hunt told us.

“At the moment that involves an element of the Taliban being here alongside us as you would’ve seen while you’ve been here – and also we have to put our thoughts of previous tours aside because obviously everyone’s trying to get the safest situation here, which is to avoid a humanitarian crisis and bring those people through who need to.”

This airlift is now a multinational nightmare, not just for the US and Britain.

In the crowds they try to identify themselves to the soldiers and foreign services of countries they have links to.

One group are wearing T-shirts with Finland and the country’s flag drawn on it.

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But there are plenty of other countries as well: Spain, Poland, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Germany, Austria… the list goes on.

Their days are spent hoping someone will spot them and take them out of this hellhole and put them on a plane.

The wait is often days and days.

In the horrendous rush to get here families have been split. We saw posters for missing children dotted among the crowds.

People search for their loved ones in a daze of panic – but this is a tough environment and only a few will make the flights.

Only some will go as a complete family, and nobody knows how long they have left before the flights stop. It is purgatory.

World

Gaza food situation ‘worst it’s ever been’, charity says – as tank attack reportedly kills 12 at camp

Published

8 hours ago

July 22, 2025

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Gaza food situation 'worst it's ever been', charity says - as tank attack reportedly kills 12 at camp

An aid worker in Gaza has told Sky News the food situation in the enclave is “absolutely desperate” and “the worst it’s ever been”.

Her comments to chief presenter Mark Austin come amid fresh outcry over aid restrictions, with the UK joining 24 other countries to urge an immediate end to the war.

It also comes as at least 12 more Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded when tanks shelled a tent encampment in western Gaza City, according to health authorities.

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Medics, speaking early on Tuesday, said two shells were fired at tents housing displaced people from tanks positioned north of the Shati camp.

Israel hasn’t yet commented on the reports.

Rachael Cummings, humanitarian director for Save The Children, spoke to Sky News from Deir al Balah, a city where tens of thousands of people have sought refuge during repeated waves of mass displacement.

She said: “One of my colleagues said to me yesterday, ‘We are all walking together towards death’. And this is the situation now for people in Gaza.

“There is no food for their children, it’s absolutely desperate here.”

“The markets are empty,” she said. “People may even have cash in their pockets yet they cannot buy bread [or] vegetables.

“My team have said to me, ‘There’s nothing in my house to feed my children, my children are crying all day, every day.”

Israel launched a ground assault on southern and eastern Deir al Balah for the first time on Monday after having issued an evacuation order.

Local medics said at least three people were killed when houses and mosques were hit by tank shelling.

Sources told Reuters news agency that Israel believes some of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas in October 2023 could be in the area.

Ms Cummings’s remarks came as the UK and 24 other nations issued a joint statement calling for a ceasefire.

The statement criticised aid distribution in Gaza, which is being managed by a US and Israel-backed organisation, Gaza Health Foundation (GHF).

Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed while trying to get food in recent weeks, both from GHF and UN convoys.

“The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,” the joint statement said.

The 25 countries also called for the “immediate and unconditional release” of hostages captured by Hamas during the 7 October 2023 attacks.

Lammy promises £40m for Gaza

Foreign Secretary David Lammy has promised £40m for humanitarian assistance in Gaza.

He told MPs: “We are leading diplomatic efforts to show that there must be a viable pathway to a Palestinian state involving the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, in the security and governance of the area.

“Hamas can have no role in the governance of Gaza, nor use it as a launchpad for terrorism.”

Addressing the foreign secretaries’ joint written statement, charity worker Liz Allcock – who works for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) in Gaza – told Sky News: “While we welcome this, there have been statements in the past 21 months and nothing has changed.

“In fact, things have only got worse. And every time we think it can’t get worse, it does.”

“Without a reversal of the siege, the lack of supplies, the constant bombardment, the forced displacement, the killing, the militarisation of aid, we are going to collapse as a humanitarian response,” she said.

“And this would do a grave injustice to the 2.2 million people we’re trying to serve.

“An immediate and permanent ceasefire, and avenues for accountability in line with international law, is the minimum people here deserve.”

The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage.

More than 59,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

In recent weeks hundreds of Palestinians have reportedly been killed while waiting for food and aid.

The Israeli military has blamed Hamas militants for fomenting chaos and endangering civilians.

World

Trade war: Is August escalation on – or will Trump chicken out?

Published

8 hours ago

July 22, 2025

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Trade war: Is August escalation on - or will Trump chicken out?

Donald Trump is clearly seething over the term ‘TACO’ (Trump always chickens out) – a phrase that has characterised financial market trading over the past few months.

It suggests that for all the president’s bluster and threats during his on-off trade war to date, he rarely follows through.

When asked by a reporter about TACO in late May, as his “liberation day” escalation remained on pause, he declared it a “nasty” question and said he wanted negotiations.

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Mr Trump wants a deal but to effectively bully America’s trading partners into agreeing better terms.

It’s a playbook that has defined his time in the White House and, as things stand, more than 20 nations and territories, including Japan and South Korea, face heightened tariffs of up to 40% on their exports to the US from 1 August.

Financial markets don’t really believe it. Stock markets, for example, are still hovering near or at record levels in both the US and in Europe. The FTSE 100 closed above 9,000 points for the first time on Monday evening. TACO is ingrained in those values.

But are markets in for a shock, especially when it comes to the fight with America’s single largest trading partner, the European Union? It was created, Mr Trump has previously claimed, to “screw” the United States.

It’s fair to say there was great optimism in the EU earlier this month that a deal, similar to that agreed between the US and UK, was looming to avert the worst of a threatened 30% baseline tariff from 1 August.

But the mood music in Brussels changed at the back end of last week and now EU diplomats are even briefing that a broader range of retaliation measures is being considered beyond additional tariffs on US goods.

The seriousness of this fight should not be underestimated.

EU figures show trade in goods and services between the bloc and the US account for almost a third of all global trade, at a value in 2024 alone of €1.68trn (£1.45trn).

EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic has warned that a 30% tariff would “practically prohibit” the bloc’s transatlantic trade, according to remarks via diplomats reported by the Reuters news agency.

We’re told that, even if time runs out, a truce could theoretically be agreed soon after 1 August.

Much will depend on the EU’s response.

Does it go down the route taken by the UK and not retaliate, pending the conclusion of talks?

There is growing pressure on Brussels to call Mr Trump’s bluff.

The EU has a package of tariffs on €21bn of US goods ready to go from 6 August. An additional package is yet to be finalised.

France is demanding US services are hit too, with even Germany now saying such an escalation should be considered.

The so-called “anti-coercion” instrument, as it’s known, would also potentially allow the bloc to limit US companies’ access to financial service markets in the EU.

So what happens after 1 August could be even more explosive.

But there is every reason to believe that a tit-for-tat escalation is unlikely, at least for long.

The very reason Donald Trump rowed back on his “liberation day” tariffs in April, allowing 90 days for talks, was likely the dire financial market reaction that followed news of the widespread duties.

You have a president demanding interest rate cuts (at a time when inflation is on the rise due to the impact of tariffs) in a bid to boost flagging economic growth.

Mr Trump says his trade war is all about boosting US manufacturing jobs but, at the end of the day, no powerbase of voters is going to accept a threat to the value of their investments for long.

No big US company will stand by and see its sales suffer.

TACO? It’s a solid bet.

World

Plane crashes into college campus in Bangladesh – at least 19 people dead

Published

8 hours ago

July 22, 2025

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Plane crashes into college campus in Bangladesh - at least 19 people dead

At least 19 people have died after a Bangladesh air force plane crashed into a college campus, the military said.

The aircraft crashed into the campus of Milestone School and College in Uttara, in the northern area of the capital Dhaka, where students were taking tests or attending regular classes.

The pilot was one of the people killed, and, according to the military, 164 were injured in the incident.

The Bangladesh military’s public relations department added that the aircraft was an F-7 BGI, and had taken off at 1.06pm local time before crashing shortly after.

Video shows fire and smoke rising from the crash site, with hundreds looking on.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

Bengali-language daily newspaper Prothom Alo said that most of the injured were students with burn injuries.

Citing the duty officer at the fire service control room, Prothom Alo also reported that the plane had crashed on the roof of the college canteen.

Rafiqa Taha, a 16-year-old student at the school who was not present at the time of the crash, told the Associated Press that the school has around 2,000 students.

“I was terrified watching videos on TV,” she added. “My God! It’s my school.”