A terrified American citizen who was an interpreter for the US military has said she is now stranded in Afghanistan — because no one told her the last flights were leaving Monday.
“I just found out that [the last US troops] left, and I was just silent for a while,” the interpreter, using the pseudonym Sara for safety, told CNN Monday night.
“I just can’t believe no one told me that this is the last flight.”
Sara said she is now more terrified than during any of her missions helping the military over 14 years.
“They left us to whom? To those people who wanted to always kill us?
“This is my fear,” she told “Cuomo Prime Time” of Taliban troops who have reportedly been going door-to-door seeking revenge on those who helped their opposition.
“It’s just heartbreaking … I still had hope that we would leave.”
She said she repeatedly attempted to get through to mercy flights at Kabul airport, detailing how she was instructed to hold up an umbrella and also shout out a code word — “but nothing worked” to get past checkpoints and the thousands trying to flee.
“If Americans could not help me when they were on the ground, how will they help me now when no one is here?” she asked.
“Is anyone going to rescue me now?”
Sara had previously told CNN’s Chris Cuomo that she was sheltering 37 people in her house, including 19 children, two of whom are disabled. “I can’t leave them behind,” she said in an earlier interview.
Now that the western troops have left, she feels that the people she was trying to protect are now at risk.
“Now they are more target than ever before because they are living in my house and I am an American,” she told the CNN host.
“What is next for us?” she asked. “I’m speechless.”
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Tuesday that “several hundred” Americans remain in Afghanistan after the last C-17 plane left Kabul’s airport at 11:59 p.m. local time, just ahead of the Aug. 31 deadline.
“We’re heartbroken that we couldn’t get everybody out, but they still have our commitment, they still have the commitment of this administration and the United States and we’re going to do everything we can to continue to try to get them out of that country and out safely,” Kirby insisted.
