A youth soccer player from Afghanistan was one of the people who died after falling from a U.S. transport plane on Monday as residents were seeking to flee the country, according to USA Today. The soccer player, Zaki Anwari, was 19 years old and a member of Afghanistan’s youth national team.
“With great regret and sadness, we obtained information that Zaki Anwari, one of the youth footballers of the national team, has lost his life in a horrible incident,” Afghanistan’s General Directorate of Physical Education and Sports said in a statement on Thursday, per CNN. The statement goes on to say that Anwari was “endeavoring to leave the country like hundreds other youth from his country. He has fallen down from the US military plane and lost his life.”
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Our deepest condolences go out to the family, friends and teammates of young Afghan national team footballer Zaki Anwari, who reportedly died in a fall from a U.S. plane at Kabul airport on Monday. pic.twitter.com/2DgulUw1HD
— FIFPRO (@FIFPRO) August 19, 2021
Video footage shows people frantically hanging on to a C-17 aircraft at the Kabul airport as hundreds of people tried to escape after the Taliban took over the country. The statement from Afghanistan’s General Directorate of Physical Education and Sports said Anwari was among “several other compatriots who fell to the ground while flying” in search of a “better future in America.”
This comes as President Joe Biden has withdrawn U.S. soldiers from Afghanistan. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, Biden talked about how he said a Taliban takeover was highly unlikely.
“If you go back and look at the intelligence reports, they said that it’s more likely to be sometime by the end of the year,” Biden said. “The idea that the tal – and then it goes further on, even as late as August. I think you’re gonna see – the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others speaking about this later today.”
Biden also explained why now it was the time to bring back the troops. “There is no good time to leave Afghanistan,” he said. “15 years ago would have been a problem, 15 years from now. The basic choice is, am I going to send your sons and your daughters to war in Afghanistan, in perpetuity?”
