A Co Down man has spoken of his pride in helping 15,000 people flee from the Taliban just a year ago, after narrowly escaping a terror attack himself.
Josh Norton was part of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) team that was deployed to Kabul to urgently evacuate people following the collapse of the Afghan government.
The 26-year-old arrived in Kabul on August 17, 2021 and was eventually dramatically pulled out himself, narrowly missing the devastating terror attack which killed 170 people.
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Speaking on the first anniversary of Operation Pitting, Josh admits the experience of working in the UK’s evacuation handling centre near Kabul airport was ‘hell on earth’ - but is proud of the part he played in rescuing so many lives.
The Moira man said: “There were many moments where it just felt like hell on earth, but knowing that we were getting so many people out motivated us to keep going.
“It's a total cliché but if ever the expression ‘emotional rollercoaster’ summed something up, it would be my experience in Kabul.
“People were sat in front of you, and you did feel as if their lives were literally in your hands.
“One minute you’d have a family high-fiving you and jumping up and down with happiness and relief when you told them they were eligible to get to the UK.
“But there were a lot of very difficult and heart-breaking cases where you had to tell people you were unable to get them out at that point because they were not eligible to be granted access to the UK.
“The reactions varied between extreme anger to hysterical crying and sadness and often these emotions were directed at me as an individual.
“People, who were understandably stressed and upset, were blaming me personally for ‘sending them to their deaths’, as they put it, and telling us that their blood was on my hands."
Josh recalls a particularly difficult time when he had to take the tough decision to separate a family.
“There were a lot of times I shed a tear. The hardest one I dealt with was a case with a mother, brother and her two children. The father was living in the UK with a British passport and had been sending money back, while his wife’s brother had apparently been acting father for the kids for years.
“Unfortunately, the brother wasn’t eligible, so we had to break them up. The kids were literally clinging onto the brother as we ushered them towards the airport, leaving him behind.
“It took about 20 minutes to separate them and I never ever imagined I’d be in a situation like that, having to guide a 10-year-old boy and his sister away from their much-loved uncle. When you see even battle-hardened soldiers in tears, that tells you all you need to know.”
The UK Government successfully evacuated over 15,000 people, including around 2,200 children, from August 14 until the final British military flight departed on Saturday August 28.
Over the past 12 months, the UK has committed £286 million in humanitarian aid to ensure ordinary Afghans are not abandoned.
Josh who is based in London, has continued to work on Afghanistan, including during a stint at the new UK Mission to Afghanistan in Doha, where he had to speak directly to the Taliban.
Josh recalled being evacuated from the handling centre by British soldiers shortly before the terror attack by ISIS-K suicide bombers targeted the perimeter of the hotel where he and his team had been working to help people flee.
He said: “It was scary and traumatic going into Kabul and every day you lived with the threat of an attack constantly hanging over you, which tragically came to fruition.
“We are so grateful our security team had some insight that something was imminent and got us out safely before it went off.
“The attack happened not long after we had left the hotel. It actually took place on the road that we’d driven along, so it was quite a close call.
“Not long after we’d got out of our vehicles, we heard the thuds of the explosions. You then heard gunfire as rapid reaction forces rushed to the scene.
“After the initial attack, we could hear lots of other explosions going off. It turned out that they were controlled explosions which were being carried out by the military but at the time we thought it was an ongoing attack.
“It was a scary experience. There were rumours flying around that Islamic state operatives had breached the perimeter of the airport with suicide vests on, which was obviously very worrying.
“We hunkered down in a bunker with the lights off for a few hours waiting for things to die down so we could get an RAF flight out. Your senses in the darkness were heightened so every noise and the sound was quite traumatic but the military boys kept us safe and ultimately got us out with no casualties.”
Josh insists his now fiancée Sara-Jane Brownlee and parents suffered even more than he did.
He said: “I think it was probably even tougher for my loved ones back home than it was for me in many respects because they were seeing the very vivid pictures on 24-hour news coverage.
“I spoke to them maybe once or twice while I was in Kabul, but I think because I was so exhausted my conversation probably did not fill them with much confidence.
“When terror attack happened all of the telephone and internet signal in Kabul was completely down so there were four or five hours everyone had seen it on the news but couldn’t hear from me. I think my mum particularly was in floods of tears not knowing if I had been caught up in it and hurt.”
He added: “It does give you a live life for the moment attitude. I proposed to my girlfriend once I returned and we get married this October.”
Josh was relieved to get home but says he would happily volunteer to help with any future crisis.
He said: “That Saturday morning we got onto the RAF C-17 military flight packed in like sardines. It was only when the plane took off that the adrenaline started to wear off and it hit you what you’d been through.
“We’d been working 20-hour days on two or three hours sleep because you had thousands of people to deal with and you just never knew when we were going to have to pull the plug.
“You were always conscious that the evacuation could be stopped at any moment by a terror attack so the motivation to push through and get as many people out as possible was over-riding.
“We did not get everyone out that we would have wanted at that point, but we exceeded the expectations. I was involved in some of the planning in the months before the Taliban took power and I think the number of people we thought was feasible was much lower.
“It is an achievement we are proud of because that many out in the end working under the most exceptionally challenging circumstances on the ground in Kabul.
“It was definitely the scariest experience of my life. It was a strange mix of exhilaration, being part of such an important global event and having a role helping people in that situation, but also at the same time an uncertain, scary, traumatic time.
“But it is something, despite the toll it took on me and my colleagues, that I’m proud to have been a part of and I’d definitely do it again. Seeing Afghans who we helped get to the UK now safe and in jobs or education makes it all worthwhile.”
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