Afghan woman's trek to escape Kabul with her daughter -- and her plea to help family stuck behind

Sarina and her two-year-old daughter made a harrowing escape from Afghanistan in late August, but she’s pleading for help to save her at-risk family that's still behind.

"Everything bad that you think of was there," Sarina told ABC News in a video call, wiping away tears. "I was feeling like, 'I'm gonna die. Why?'"

She said she came to terms with dying during her first attempt to get inside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Aug. 19, surrounded by shouting, gunshots and beatings in a sea of thousands of people desperate to flee -- but she said she told herself if she could just get her two-year-old daughter out of the Taliban's Afghanistan, it would be OK.

"It was not easy that night," said Sarina, whose name ABC News has changed for the safety of her family still in Afghanistan. "One second I thought I lost my daughter forever. I thought, 'This is not the life I wanted...I will remain under Taliban, and they will kill me. At least my daughter will be safe."

After waiting outside the airport for more than 10 hours, where she said they were treated like "animals," her family returned to their shelter in Kabul, saying her daughter had seen enough.