Bengaluru: Afghan national team football player Zaki Anwari fell to his death as he tried to escape Kabul by clinging onto a US plane leaving the capital city, according to the General Directorate of Physical Education and Sports of Afghanistan.
The General Directorate of Physical Education and Sports of Afghanistan confirmed the news in a Facebook post in which they said: “It is with great sadness that Zaki Anwari, one of the players of the national junior football team of the country, died in a bad accident. The late Anwari was among hundreds of young people who wanted to leave the country, fell down in an accident from a US plane and lost his life.”
Hundreds of Afghans had thronged Kabul airport Monday, a day after the Taliban took over the city, in the hope to flee the country.
In a video that went viral on social media, a crowd of people can be seen running along the C-17 aircraft of the US Air Force. Anwari was presumably among those who had climbed onto the undercarriage of the plane before it took off. In a second video, people appear to be falling off the same aircraft soon after it took off from the Kabul airport.
Anwari was identified in the investigation being conducted by the US Air Force into the circumstances surrounding human remains that were found in the wheel of the C-17.
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Who was Zaki Anwari
19-year-old Zaki Anwari was a student of Esteqlal High School — one of the most prestigious schools in Afghanistan.
Under the regimes of former presidents Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani, sports had thrived in Afghanistan.
With the Taliban once again rising to power in the country, many are wondering if the days of organised sports are behind them. When the Taliban first clinched power in 1996, men’s sport is said to have taken a backseat while women had completely been barred from participating.
Meanwhile, condolences have been pouring in for the young player on social media.
A friend of Anwari’s wrote on Instagram, “The news of the death of my dear friend, comrade and brother Mohammad Zaki has saddened me deeply.”
Elias Niazi, a sports journalist in Afghanistan, wrote, “Zaki Anwari, the valuable star of the national youth football team of the country, has died in the Kabul air field accident. His close ones say that Zaki intended to go to America to have a better life, but he unfortunately lost his life in the chaos of Kabul airfield.”
The Fédération Internationale des Associations de Footballeurs Professionnels (FIFPRO), an international organisation of footballers, also tweeted saying, “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 US plane at Kabul airport on Monday.”
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