This photo captures how desperate Afghans are to escape Taliban

In the photo, Afghan men and women were seen crammed inside the US air force’s C-17 Globemaster III as they left the country.

Several photographs and videos have emerged from Afghanistan showing the plight of Afghans as the Taliban took over the country village by village and claimed the urban areas of the country by finally seizing Kabul. One photo, in particular, has shown how desperate Afghans are to leave. The photo obtained by US defence and security news site Defense One shows more than 600 people crowding into the US air force’s C-17 Globemaster III as they left their home country after Kabul fell to the Taliban.

The Afghans were safely taken to Qatar from Kabul on Sunday. (Defense One Photo)

Defense One reported that the 640 people, who were safely evacuated, are among the most passengers ever flown in the C-17. It said cited flight tracking software saying the massive aircraft belongs to the 436th Air Wing based at Delaware’s Dover Air Force Base.

The news site cited a defence official as saying that the C-17 did not want to fly so many people but “panicked Afghans who had been cleared to evacuate pulled themselves onto the C-17’s half-open ramp”. “The crew made the decision to go” instead of trying to force the Afghans off the aircraft, a defence official told Defense One. “Approximately 640 Afghan civilians disembarked the aircraft when it arrived at its destination,” the defence official said.

Other reports said the passengers, including women and children, were safely evacuated from Kabul to Qatar on Sunday.

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans rushed to the Kabul airport on Monday to flee the war-torn country under the fear that the Taliban will once again impose their brutal and repressive regime. People trying to flee after Taliban insurgents seized Kabul crowded the runway and several videos showed hundreds of them running alongside a military carrier as it travelled along the runway. Some were seen clinging to the side of moving military planes and at least two reportedly fell to their deaths from the undercarriage soon after takeoff.

After the US troops, manning the airport, shut it down on Monday to contain the chaos and crowds, evacuations restarted on Tuesday. However, only military flights are evacuating diplomats and civilians.

On Tuesday, the Taliban declared an “amnesty” across Afghanistan and urged women to join its government. “The Islamic Emirate doesn't want women to be victims. They should be in government structure according to Shariah law,” Enamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban's cultural commission, said according to the Associated Press.

Samangani’s were first comments on governance from a federal level across the country after the Taliban overpowered the government in Afghanistan.