Afghanistan Footballer Fell to Death From US Military Plane

Afghanistan Crisis: Zaki Anwari, a high school student, was a member of the country's national junior football team.

Zaki Anwari was a high school student and a member of the country's national junior football team.

Image: FIFPRO / TWITTER

An Afghan footballer who played for the national youth team was among those killed who were clinging to a US military aircraft leaving Hamid Karzai International Airport in Taliban-controlled Kabul for Doha. According to reports, 19-year-old Afghan footballer Zaki Anwari's remains were found in the aircraft's wheel well when it landed in Doha.

The news of Anwari's death was confirmed by the General Directorate of Physical Education and Sports of Afghanistan, a government institution that worked with sporting groups.

“Anwari, like thousands of Afghan youths, wanted to leave the country but fell off a US plane and died,” the group said in a statement posted on Facebook on Thursday.

Anwari was identified as one of those who had stormed the runway in a desperate bid to cling on to evacuating flights. He was a high school student and a member of the country's national junior football team.

According to a report in dailymail.co.uk, he was trapped in the landing gear of the US evacuation flight.

"Mr Anwari's remains were discovered in the wheel well of a US C-17 transport jet when it arrived in Qatar, after the plane had taken off from Kabul with despairing Afghans clinging to the fuselage on Monday," the report claimed.

"His football team the Khorosan lions reported that he had been among the teen's videoed clinging to the side of a US C-17 transport," it added.

(With IANS inputs)