August 22: 20 Years In Afghanistan
📸For Your 👀 Only: Paula Bronstein / Pulitzer Center / Getty Images Afghan students walk out after classes at the Zarghoona high school on July 25, 2021 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Paula Bronstein has been a photojournalist for over three decades and has covered Afghanistan for the past 20 years. She evacuated last Sunday from Kabul, where she had been working for the past two months with the Pulitzer Center for Reporting, the Wall Street Journal, and Getty Images.
You've been covering Afghanistan now for how long? After 9/11, I came to Pakistan, then I went into Afghanistan. I was covering the pro-Taliban protests in Pakistan in 2001. I have photos from Pakistan from Sept. 19, 2001.
Can you talk about the final few days you were in Kabul, and when you decided to leave?
I've been through this before in Afghanistan. When Anja Niedringhaus was killed in 2014, that was during the elections, I was working with Getty and the Wall Street Journal. I was told to leave and there was no choice about it. I kept on saying, but this was a one-off, this is a freak thing, although it was horrible, horrible. I kind of pushed, and stayed longer.
This was the most difficult one for me, because of the impending obvious situation that the Taliban were going to enter Kabul. When the Wall Street Journal was shutting down their bureau and they asked, "When do you want to go?" I said, "I'm not ready to go yet, I'm going to stay, I'll let you know." I had a couple of talks with the security adviser and then, maybe a couple of days later, not even that, Kandahar fell. Paula Bronstein / Pulitzer Center / Getty Images Afghans wait in long lines for hours at the passport office as many are desperate to have their travel documents ready to go on August 14, 2021 in Kabul, Afghanistan. I got a text message at like 7 in the morning. I was still in bed. I woke up looking at that message. And to be quite honest with you, I started crying. I said, this is it. You got your red line and that was it. I had already discussed it with the security guy. I said, "Look, when Mazar falls or Kandahar, that's a red line for me."
I'm not stupid. I can handle a lot of stuff. And I have — especially in that country — I've seen my friends get killed, David Gilkey, Anja Niedringhaus, she was a friend, you know?
I got on the phone with the security guy, and said, OK, you're right. It's time. Kandahar just fell, there was no fighting, that's it. They [the Taliban] are going to sweep up here. And they're going to be here by the weekend. You said it was before all of the chaos kicked off, but within that, did it feel very normal? Did it feel very tense? I left 24 hours before [things got really chaotic]. The traffic in this city became completely insane because of all the people that have flooded into Kabul from all the northern provinces. So you got all those extra people and the city, which has bad traffic on any given day, and the crisis made it unbelievable.
Last thing I shot was at the passport office because it was chaos there. The chaos at the airport only happened because the president fled the country. It was just a shock after all those months of peace talks and Doha for him to decide, "OK, OK. That's it, we're done."
It's a slap in the face of the Afghans. Paula Bronstein / Pulitzer Center / Getty Images An elderly Afghan woman shows off her inked finger to the camera after she made it to the polls to cast her vote September 18, 2010 in Kabul, Panjshir, Afghanistan. Can you talk a little bit about the people who are camping out, who came as internal refugees? That desperation was what you see in so many countries when war pushes refugees out. These people were fleeing, some of them lost their homes, some of them lost family members. They were fleeing the full-on fighting that was going on in northern provinces. They didn't think Kabul was going to fall so quickly. Nobody did.
Any final thoughts? I think it's more of a serious issue that not enough people are writing about, that has to do with all the US programs. It's not just about the military pullout. It's all of US programming. All the US-funded programs have been cut — and they've been cut drastically.
There needs to be more attention about these programs that are really vital — no matter if the Taliban is playing this nice, nice game and girls can go to school and whatever, women still do need this financial help getting their own business going. Paula Bronstein / Pulitzer Center / Getty Images Afghan track star Massoud Azizi ,20, trains along a dirt track on a hill overlooking Kabul March 12, 2008 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Azizi is one of three Afghan athletes already confirmed to compete at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. 📸MORE FROM OUR DESK 📸 As always, here are some of the best photo stories from around the internet, and what we loved from our desk. THIS IS WHAT THE FALL OF KABUL LOOKED LIKE Getty Images
THESE PHOTOS PROVE SOMETIMES THE BEST CAMERA IS YOUR PHONE Getty Images
HAITI IS COPING WITH BACK TO BACK NATURAL DISASTERS Reginald Louissaint Jr / AFP via Getty Images
SOME HOPE Getty Images A cat lies across the shoulders of a protester during a demonstration calling for the resignation of Thailand's Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha over the government's handling of the Covid-19 coronavirus crisis in Bangkok on August 18, 2021. "We are making photographs to understand what our lives mean to us." — Ralph Hattersley That's it for this week! Kate, Kirsten + Pia
📝 This letter was edited and brought to you by the News Photo team. Kate Bubacz is the photo director based in New York and loves dogs. Pia Peterson is a photo editor based in Brooklyn. You can always reach us here.
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