A Lanarkshire diplomat has shared her reflections on playing her part in helping thousands of people flee Afghanistan as the Taliban seized control of the country 12 months ago.
Katrina Johnson was the UK’s consul general and post security officer at the British Embassy in Kabul at the time of last year’s offensive, which led to the collapse of the country’s government and the evacuation of thousands of British and Afghan nationals.
She told how she saw “the best and the worst of humanity” as she and her team contributed to the operation, and how they were finally forced to leave the country after the devastating Daesh terror attack which killed 170 people on August 26, 2021.
Katrina, who is from Cumbernauld, had been working at the Kabul embassy since January 2020 and found herself at the heart of UK emergency mission Operation Pitting as the role became her “most dangerous posting”.
She said: “We got 15,000 people out – many of whom would not be alive today – so I feel strongly that’s something to be proud about. It was a harrowing experience because you were dealing face-to-face with families in the most desperate of situations.
“Many people had been victims of violence as they made their way through Taliban checkpoints, and we heard reports of the Taliban carrying out executions elsewhere.
“One of the saddest conversations I had was [about] picking up children at the airport who had been discarded like shopping trollies – we all held babies at some stage and you wonder how many were left with no parents and what happened.
“The lovely moments were when I could tell people we were getting them out to the UK. It was a 24/7 race against the clock to get as many people out as we could and every second counted.”
The UK government evacuated more than 15,000 people, including around 2200 children, in the two-week operation; and has since has committed £286 million in humanitarian aid “to ensure ordinary Afghans are not abandoned”.
Katrina told how she and her team were finally forced to leave two days after the suicide bombing – having earlier been in the same area and having “missed the terror attack by two hours”.
She said: “The loss of life was just utterly devastating.
“We’d had a terrible sense that something was imminent and working on Operation Pitting felt like the evacuation team had a giant sand timer in the room. I was the second-last person out of the UK embassy, and we continued to process cases from inside the airport until the last British flight departed.”
She added: “Bombs went off a lot and a Taliban attack on the Afghan defence minister’s house happened just 500 metres from the embassy. I don’t think I ever got used to that moment when the alarm goes off, saying, ‘Incoming, incoming’.”
The 56-year-old, a mum of two, is now serving as the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) corporate services director in Iraq and was appointed OBE in the Queen’s jubilee honours in June.
She reflected one year on “with mixed emotions”, saying: “I feel proud we got 15,000 people out, thanks to such an empathetic and professional team in Kabul; but it’s only natural to wish I could have done even more because we knew anything could happen to those we couldn’t evacuate at the time.
“I joined the FCDO to try and make a difference and I believe we did that. We are still helping Afghan people now and will continue to do so in the years to come.”
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