‘I lost my best friend, we were journalists fleeing Kabul’

Afghan journalist Zakarya Hassani escaped from Kabul to Paris after the Taliban takeover. Weeks later, he watched in anguish as his best friend Alireza Ahmadi died trying to do the same.

On Thursday, August 26 – less than two weeks after the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan – explosions rang out near the airport, where thousands had been crowding, attempting to flee the country in fear of a return to the group’s brutal rule of the 1990s. More than 170 people were killed and at least 200 wounded. Journalist Alireza Ahmadi, 35, was among them. This is his story. The last time I spoke with Alireza was the night of August 25 – the night before the deadly explosions in front of Abbey Gate of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, where my best friend would experience his last moments in this world. I sat in my hotel room in Paris – where I have been since fleeing Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban takeover – while Alireza was in a small, rented room at a private male dormitory in West Kabul.