Scenes at Kabul airport are ‘just horrific’ and ‘should have been avoided’

The scenes of people fleeing the Taliban to the Kabul airport are “just horrific” and "should have been avoided”, according to Amnesty International Australia Refugee Adviser Dr Graham Thom. “It’s absolutely terrifying … you just cannot imagine it,” he told Sky News Australia. “I think that description of how people are trying to get to the airport and what’s facing them when they get there, imagine fleeing the Taliban, getting to the airport and there are Taliban gunmen right there, beating you back with sticks. "I mean it is just horrific.” Dr Thom said the withdrawal could have been planned “much better” and the chaos unfolding at the moment “should have been avoided”. “I think the whole thing has been chaotic, it’s an absolute nightmare for the Afghan population on the ground,” he said. “We have seen this coming for months; Australian veterans have been seeing this coming for months. "They’ve been screaming at our government to get people out, the interpreters that saved their lives when they were there. “This could have been planned much better, it should have been planned much better and we should have been getting people out far earlier than this."