Some of them had waited for days in the Kabul airport, days more in Qatar, hours on a hot tarmac, and hours more on the flight from Ramstein or some other air base. They’d already spent so much time waiting. On Wednesday afternoon-three days after the United passengers had been processed and dispersed to military bases throughout the United States-I went to Dulles airport to speak to other evacuees as they emerged from a security checkpoint near the Saudia ticketing desk. Read: Biden’s betrayal of Afghans will live in infamy The child’s family was safe, but they still had a long way to go. A little girl presented Johnson with a pair of earrings-tiny purple roses-as a thank-you gift. When that first United flight landed at Dulles, many of the passengers applauded. Thousands more people are still attempting to reach the airport, risking everything to escape, but the United States’ deadline for withdrawal is fast approaching.
service members, and stalling America’s evacuation efforts. Johnson’s passengers had fled Afghanistan just in time: Four days later, a terrorist group set off a bomb at the Kabul airport, killing at least 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. She listened to their stories of the violence at the airport, the gunfire and the bodies. She practiced the few Dari words she’d learned before the flight: Salaam.
She tried to make people comfortable she handed out chocolate-covered cookies to the kids and played with them while their parents slept. She didn’t know anything about their luggage, but she could help them sign into the Wi-Fi. Through an interpreter, she told the evacuees from Afghanistan that they were landing at Dulles International Airport, in Virginia that it would be a nine-hour flight. Jillian Johnson, a 35-year-old crew member, tried her best to answer all of the questions. Children begged flight attendants for bread and candy. A few asked for medical attention: One person had sliced open his foot running barefoot toward the airport in Kabul another person had broken a leg in the crush of the crowd. Many people asked about the Wi-Fi it wasn’t working, so they couldn’t tell their family members that they were alive. Others asked crew members where their luggage was, whether it had made it out of Hamid Karzai International Airport, and whether it would catch up to them in America. Some wondered where the flight was headed and how long the trip would be. The very first United Airlines evacuation flight from Ramstein Air Base, in Germany, on Sunday had 300 passengers on board, and those passengers had many questions.
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