As the Taliban took control of Afghanistan once again after 20 years, thousands of people are still desperate to flee from the troubled country, turning to any possible route and in fear for their lives, according to media reports.
"It has been my third time changing locations in the last couple of months," New York Post quoted Mir, 28, as saying anxiously from a distant relative's home near an Afghan border town. "Everyone locally here knows me as 'the driver.' My youngest brother last year was targeted and killed by unidentified people. Taliban carry out night raids now and take people out. I am safe because they haven't located me so far," Mir added.
Mir started working as a driver for the US military and contractors when he was just 16 years old, he explains, unveiling a trove of carefully kept certificates, documents and letters of recommendation. He and six other members of his family -- including his mother, sister, niece, wife and their two children, ages 4 and 8 months -- at the time were waiting on tenterhooks to get the green light on an escape plan, New York Post reported.
Mir said he had not received any direct threats or correspondence from the Taliban, yet his sister Aki claims her husband disappeared when the extremist group took Kandahar several days before Kabul fell, the publication further reported.
"He used to work at the Kandahar airport and had a shop," she said, adding that "I don't know where he is, if he is in jail, or alive, or dead."
The United States forces completed the process of leaving Afghanistan on August 31, marking the end of a chaotic and messy exit from America's longest war.
Meanwhile, over 120,000 people were evacuated by the United States and its partner nations in the final frantic weeks of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
It is been over a month since the Taliban captured Kabul after an aggressive and rapid advance against Afghanistan government forces. The country plunged into crisis last month after Kabul fell to the Taliban and the democratically elected government of former president Ashraf Ghani collapsed.
( With inputs from ANI )
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