Shoeless, shivering Afghan refugees arrive UK, pass out at airport

Volunteers have described the extraordinary dignity and stoicism of the Afghan refugees, including about 2,200 children, who were airlifted to the UK out of the clutches of the Taliban.

Many of them arrived in the UK bare-footed and shivering with children wearing the same nappies they wore when they fled their homes days’ earlier.

Some of the new arrivals were passing out from exhaustion in airport terminals, said Dara Leonard, a team leader for the British Red Cross. Others, including pregnant women and “the sick and incredibly frail” were rushed straight to hospital.

“My word, they are so stoical, so dignified but they were literally putting one foot in front of the other. To see mothers pushing their children forward towards safety was quite phenomenal.”

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Emergency responders described scenes at British airports as “shocking” and “absolute chaos” as thousands of vulnerable people were processed before being transported to hotels sometimes more than 100 miles away, where they have to quarantine for 10 days.

As the last British military personnel returned to the UK on Sunday, the government said about 5,000 British nationals and their families had been airlifted from Kabul, alongside more than 8,000 Afghan former UK staff and their families and those considered at risk from the Taliban.

All have suffered trauma that could be compounded if they are not settled quickly into life in Britain, experts say.

Dr Jennifer Wild, an Oxford academic who specialises in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), said it would be vital to break the cognitive link between the things they experienced in Afghanistan and the present, to quickly get into a stable routine and to speak to people about what they went through.

“It’ll be quite individual. It’ll be a cultural shift for Afghans that we’re bringing here – and for UK citizens coming home,” said Wild, an associate professor in experimental psychology and a consultant clinical psychologist.