One of my sons died when he fell from a plane at Kabul airport, and I still don’t know the other’s fate

Lying in a contorted, bloody heap on the runway of Kabul’s international airport is the body of Zabi Rezayee, 17. A scarf has been draped over his bare and shattered lower half.

Another man, his face so badly damaged that he is unrecognisable, lies next to him. The person filming the pair on a phone can be heard panting heavily, having run over to the bodies shortly after they fell from the plane onto the tarmac a day after the Taliban seized power in Kabul.

It was a moment that shook the world last August: some Afghans were so desperate to escape the hardline Islamist Taliban militants that they clung to a moving military transport aircraft, even as it rose into the sky.

Thousands of people had stormed the airport in an attempt to get on planes out of the country. As the C-17 plane accelerated down the runway, more than a dozen people could be seen on top of the aircraft’s landing gear. Videos taken at the time showed several bodies strewn along the runway.

Three people were seen plunging to their deaths. When the evacuation flight landed in Qatar, human remains were found inside the plane’s wheel well.

Zabi was among the dead. His older brother Zaki, 19, had also clung onto the outside of the aircraft. But, nearly a year later, his family still have no idea what happened to him.

“My wife says a little prayer every time she hears her phone ring, desperately hoping it will be some news about Zaki, our eldest son,” their father, Mohammad Rezayee, told me.

“I blame the pilot and I blame the Americans who were responsible for the airport security. Why did the pilot make the decision to take off when he knew people were holding onto the aircraft? I don’t think those clinging on really believed the plane would leave,” he said.

A deteriorating security situation led to a decision by the aircrew to “depart the airfield as soon as possible”, the US Air Force said last August.

The family had no idea the brothers had gone to the airport that morning. A wardrobe remains filled with their clothing.

“I found out when I got a call from them at the airport,” their father said. “They sounded excited, they said they were about to board the plane. I was happy for them, happy that they were leaving to somewhere safe because we were all so terrified of what would happen here with the Taliban in control,” Rezayee added, affectionately tucking the hair of one of his daughters behind her ear as he spoke.

“We were on the phone for just a couple of minutes. That was the last time I spoke to them. Less than half an hour later I received a call telling me Zabi was dead. To this day, I’ve never received any information about Zaki.”

The distraught father, unable to find an available taxi, ran the 4½ miles to the airport with his brother. Taliban guards refused to let them in. Rezayee had to wait an hour for his son’s body to be brought to him.

“My brother took Zabi’s body to the house and I began searching for Zaki,” he said. He went around hospitals, to no avail. “It’s the not knowing that’s the hardest to deal with. My wife is tormented by it,” he said. “This year has been like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I’m hurting, I’m angry, but there’s nothing I can do. I’ve buried one son and I don’t even know if the other one is dead or alive.

“They were kind boys. They liked to play football. They were educated. Zaki could speak English. He used to teach his younger siblings a bit,” Rezayee recalled.

Amid their heartbreak, the family is battling to survive an economic crisis. “As if the loss of one son and the stress of another who’s missing isn’t enough, we are facing serious hardship. I can’t afford to pay the rent of our home. I had a fruit and vegetable shop but I went out of business,” Rezayee said, adding that he could barely afford to feed his six children.

More than 24.4 million people — over half the population — need humanitarian assistance. “We’ve sold our household possessions. It’s the only option. There is no work available any more. Some days I can’t even afford bread,” Rezayee said.

“It feels like a waste of time to be angry about my sons. I have to use that energy to find a way to support my remaining children. But I would give anything to know what happened to Zaki.”