With all other exit routes closed off, the main international airport in the Afghanistan capital of Kabul has become the focal point for thousands of Afghans desperate to leave a country that has now returned to Taliban control.

The wild scenes at the airport—including images of people crowded onto runways to try and clamber onto planes, some even dangling off the stairs to aircraft—show the level of fear that the Taliban will put the country back under fundamentalist rule, punishing those perceived to have allied with the U.S. or the administration of former President Ashraf Ghani, and curtailing the rights of women.