Originally published 2021-08-26.
Zaki Anwari was a young footballer who had played for Afghanistan's national youth team. In August 2021, days after the Taliban took Kabul, he died after clinging to a US Air Force C-17 transport plane as it took off from the city's airport. His death, confirmed by Afghanistan's sports authority, became one of the most painful symbols of the desperate scramble to leave the country.
This is what is known about Anwari, the flight he tried to board, and the wider evacuation that surrounded it.
Who was Zaki Anwari?
Anwari was widely reported to be 19 years old. He was a member of Afghanistan's national youth football squad, part of a generation that grew up during the two decades of US-backed government, when sport, and especially football, offered young Afghans opportunities and international contact.
His death was confirmed on Facebook by Afghanistan's General Directorate of Physical Education and Sports, the government body that worked with the country's sporting organisations. The statement said Anwari, "like thousands of Afghan youths, wanted to leave the country but fell off a US plane and died." Friends and fellow players shared messages of grief online in the days that followed.
Behind the headlines, he was a teenager with a sporting career ahead of him, and that is how many in Afghan football chose to remember him.
What happened on 16 August 2021
On Sunday 15 August 2021, Taliban fighters entered Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. The next day, thousands of people rushed onto the runway at Hamid Karzai International Airport, hoping to get on any departing aircraft.
A US Air Force C-17 that had landed with cargo was quickly surrounded by hundreds of civilians. According to an Air Force spokeswoman, the crew decided to leave because the security situation was deteriorating so fast. Video filmed that day showed crowds running alongside the plane as it gathered speed, with several men holding on to its side, and other clips appeared to show people falling from the aircraft after take-off.
When the C-17 landed at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, human remains were found in its wheel well. Reports at the time described at least two or three people falling; Anwari is believed to have been among those who died.
Why so many tried to leave
The Taliban's return followed a rapid offensive as US and NATO forces completed their withdrawal after a 20-year war. Many Afghans remembered the movement's harsh rule in the late 1990s, when women were barred from most work and education and public punishments were common.
Those who felt most at risk included people who had worked for foreign forces or embassies, interpreters, journalists, activists, women in public life and officials of the fallen government. Others simply feared for their future and saw the airlift as their last chance. Many reached the airport without visas or documents, adding to the confusion at the gates.
For a young man like Anwari, the choice must have looked stark. Commercial flights had stopped, land borders were uncertain, and rumours spread quickly that any plane on the tarmac might be the last way out. That atmosphere helps explain why people took risks on the runway that would be unthinkable in calmer times. Climbing onto the outside of a large jet is almost always fatal: there is nowhere secure to hold on, and anyone hidden in a wheel well faces crushing landing gear, extreme cold and too little oxygen at altitude.
The scale of the evacuation
Between 14 and 30 August 2021, more than 123,000 people were flown out of Kabul, one of the largest airlifts in history. The US military alone moved about 79,000 civilians through the airport during the operation.
The process was marked by deadly chaos. People died in crowd crushes and gunfire near the gates during the first days. On 26 August, a suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic State affiliate ISIS-K struck near the airport, killing around 170 Afghan civilians and 13 US service members. The last US military flight left on 30 August.
President Joe Biden defended the decision to end the war, while critics at home and abroad questioned how unprepared the withdrawal appeared. In an ABC News interview that August, Biden argued that a departure without chaos was hard to imagine.
The Air Force investigation
The US military confirmed it was investigating the deaths soon after the flight. On 13 June 2022 the Air Force announced its conclusion: the crew "acted appropriately and exercised sound judgment in their decision to get airborne as quickly as possible," and had not caused the deaths.
The investigation found that the crew had complied with the applicable rules, and that the aircraft itself was apparently undamaged. Host-nation police in Qatar declined further inquiry after the remains were examined.
The finding did not end the debate about the evacuation's planning, but it addressed the narrower question of the crew's decision on that runway.
Remembering him
Anwari's story is often told through a few seconds of shocking video. It is fairer to remember him as a young athlete who represented his country, and as one of many ordinary Afghans who faced an impossible choice in August 2021. When sharing coverage of events like this, focusing on the people rather than recirculating distressing footage is a small way to show respect.
The footage from 16 August also changed how many people abroad saw the end of the war. For weeks afterwards, the image of crowds chasing a military transport down a runway was used in debates about responsibility, planning and the obligations owed to Afghans who had worked alongside foreign forces. Anwari's name gave one of those faceless figures an identity.
His death is also a reminder of what was at stake for Afghan sport after the takeover, when many athletes, especially women, fled or went into hiding.
Sources: Al Jazeera, 19 August 2021: Zaki Anwari, Afghan footballer fell to death from US plane; Arab News (AFP), 19 August 2021; Air & Space Forces Magazine, June 2022: C-17 crew not at fault in deaths of Afghan civilians; Wikipedia: Fall of Kabul (2021).
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