The US-trained Afghan pilots who are at a camp in Uzbekistan are scared of being sent back to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. It was little comfort when an Uzbek guard in an uncompassionate manner said, “You can’t stay here forever.”
The unconcerned warning added to an already grinding sense of discomfort at the camp just adjacent to the Afghan northern border, recounted one of the Afghan pilots who fled the country with an aircraft when ground forces fell to the Taliban in August as the United States and its allies pulled out their soldiers from the war-torn country.
“If they send us back, I’m 100 percent sure they will kill us,” said the pilot, who declined to be named because of fear of reprisal.
While speaking to Reuters on a cell phone the pilot described feeling like a prisoner, with highly restricted movement, long hours in the sun, and insufficient food, and medicine.
“We are kind of like in jail,” said the pilot, who estimates that the Afghans held there are around 465.
Uzbek guards were armed, some with handguns and others with semi-automatic weapons, the pilot said.
