Chaos turns into carnage, after the hasty U.S. exit from Afghanistan.
The Taliban took over Afghanistan following Monday's departure of the last U.S. plane out of Kabul.
ABC15 spoke exclusively to a former Afghan U.S. interpreter, who we are not identifying, who says he has now gone into hiding.
“I’m scared for my life,” he said.
The man was an Afghan interpreter for U.S. troops for almost three years.
Now that the troops have left, he’s gone dark.
“Right now, I am a prisoner at home. I’m not in my own house right now. I’m in my hiding place, somewhere in Kabul. And I’m living in panic. And now the situation is very terrible,” he added.
He’s hiding because he says the Taliban has taken over the Afghan government.
“The Talibans, they call the Afghan interpreters the American spies. And they call as the infidel. And there is no forgiveness for us,” he told ABC15.
Lance Camarena was an infantryman in Afghanistan from 2017 to 2018.
He worked closely with the interpreter.
“To be honest, they were probably the most important allies we had. I knew when I was in a safe place because [he] would just translate anything from the Afghan locals,” said Camarena.
Now Camarena is extremely worried about his friend.
“The Taliban is actually going house to house, searching through their phones, searching for any kind of documentation that they work for the U.S,” Camarena told ABC15.
“Of course I am scared because if we are left behind in here, we will be slaughtered, and we will be targeted, one by one, by the Taliban,” added the interpreter.
The interpreter says leaving U.S. allies behind is a grave injustice.
“I’m very angry because, you know...this evening so..I got a call from my mom and she cried for me for my situation. And she told me you made a big mistake to serve for the US. I told her mom...I was on the right side,” said the man in tears.
The former interpreter says, due to the chaos in the airport, thousands without documents were able to leave.
He says many with documents, like himself, were left behind.
“Believe me...now I’m not asking for the U.S. Visa. I’m just asking for a safe place. Please get me out of here,” he stated with emotion.
“Just because the government’s left you, doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten about you, nor that we’re going to stop doing anything we can to help,” Camarena told ABC15.
Camarena says he is going to continue calling Government officials until he is able to get his friends, and other U.S. allies to safety.
