I'm USA TODAY editor-in-chief Nicole Carroll, and this is The Backstory, insights into our biggest stories of the week. If you'd like to get The Backstory in your inbox every week, sign up here.
None of us slept the night of Aug.19.
There were four USA TODAY editors and a reporter on a WhatsApp chat with Afghan journalist Fatema Hosseini, U.S. Navy Reserve Lt. Alex Cornell du Houx and Ukrainian military commander Iryna Andrukh.
Alex, in Washington, D.C., was guiding Fatema through the Taliban gantlet at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan – a crush of people, gunfire and tear gas. Iryna, in Kyiv, Ukraine, was directing a special forces soldier in the military portion of the airport who was trying to find her.
The rest of us were watching it play out text by text, feeling completely helpless – and completely responsible. Fatema, 27, had put her trust in our judgment, her life in our hands.
Her first text that day came at 12:54 a.m. ET. "Am near airport"
Full story: Staying could mean death. The escape nearly killed her. How one woman fled Afghanistan for freedom.
When Kabul fell to the Taliban on Aug. 15, USA TODAY London-based correspondent Kim Hjelmgaard reached out to Fatema, our freelancer in Afghanistan. “I hope you are OK,” he wrote in a WhatsApp message. “Tell me how I can help.”
She needed a way out. As a young, educated woman, an outspoken journalist and member of the Shi’a Hazara ethnic group, among the most oppressed in Afghanistan, she was a Taliban target. Her parents' home in Herat had already been ransacked.
Kim started calling every contact he could think of, as did editors at USA TODAY. There was no guidebook on how to get our freelance reporters, drivers and interpreters out of a fallen Afghanistan. Most didn't have special immigrant visas, the type needed to get on most U.S. military planes out. Those were for Afghans who had worked for or on behalf of the U.S. government, and even thousands of them couldn't get out. (In total, the U.S. and allies evacuated more than 123,000 civilians.)
I called Maria Salazar Ferro, the emergencies director at the Committee to Protect Journalists. She said she had a list of more than 1,000 journalists her group was trying to get out. As a young woman alone, Fatema would be a priority, she said, but everything about this was difficult and uncertain.
The Taliban target journalists because they are truth tellers. And anything or anyone that contradicts their dogma must be stopped by any means.
By this point, we were getting more requests. USA TODAY has been covering the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan for 20 years. Reporters were sending us notes about past freelancers, interpreters and drivers. All were at risk. Could we help?
In his flurry of calls, Kim had reached Alex, whom he'd met on a story two years ago. Alex had met Iryna at NATO School before that. She was sending a plane to Kabul to get Ukrainian citizens. A military operation could become a humanitarian one, too, she said. She would save a seat for Fatema.
Chance encounters between Kim and Alex, and Alex and Iryna, had led to this moment.
American volunteers: 'We just got 70 kids and 30 adults to safety'
Alex Cornell du Houx:Helping women escape Kabul was more stressful than being in combat
Fatema and Kim detail what happened next in a story published this week, Fatema's Escape. To get to the military side of the airport, Afghans had to get through throngs of Taliban, some shooting into the air to drive back crowds, some whipping or beating the Afghans just because they could. The week of Fatema's escape, at least 20 people died in the melee.
Fatema faced gunfire, a Taliban whip, tear gas and, horrifically, a sexual assault, as she made her way to the Ukrainian military. When she finally got there, a soldier half carried, half dragged her over the crowds to safety.
We followed her journey in texts, video clips and a voicemail, which was hard to hear due to gunfire. I took screenshots and sent them to our publisher, Maribel Perez Wadsworth. She responded throughout the night with messages like "Still not breathing."
By 4:37 a.m., Fatema had reached the airport's North Gate, and the Ukrainian soldier was on the other side of the fence. But she had to get through the Taliban one more time.
"I cnt," she texted.
"I will die"
"They open fires"
"And throw tear gas"
We didn't hear from her for another hour. Then:
"The gas went to my eyes."
"I cannot stop my tears."
Finally, at 8:33 a.m., we got what we had been hoping for all night:
"Am in"
"Am safe"
By this time, the editors were on our morning news meeting call. I turned my Zoom camera off. It was hard to explain the combination of joy and tears.
There are so many heroes in this story, starting with Fatema, Alex and Iryna. Iryna received a medal from the Ukrainian government for her efforts. I hope Alex gets recognized as well.
Since Fatema's rescue, Alex, his group of volunteers and Iryna have gotten more than 500 Afghans out of Kabul, including 17 more referred by USA TODAY. And of course there is Kim, the reporter who sparked their connection. When we make him stop to think about what he has done, he says simply, "Just doing my part."
USA TODAY wasn't the only media group going to these lengths. Throughout this all, we were in contact with our peers, who were doing the same. We talked to The Associated Press, which offered contacts, and The New York Times, which shared strategy. We told them what we knew in return. The Pulitzer Prize Board awarded a special citation to the Afghan media workers and gave $100,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists to help however possible.
Many media partners and their families are still in foreign countries, like Mexico, Qatar and Ukraine, trying to make it to the U.S. or other countries where they have support. And we're still working to help them.
Fatema's family – her mother, who sewed Fatema's college diploma into her daughter's scarf; her father, whose life was at risk as an Afghan soldier; her brother and baby sister, who brighten her voice when she says their names – made it to Kyiv. Next, we hope, on to the U.S. or Canada, where Fatema's older sister lives.
Fatema doesn't want her parents' sacrifices for her future to be wasted. She doesn't want to disappoint all the people who helped an Afghan girl go to college. She knows she speaks for so many Afghan women who are left behind.
She's in the U.S. freelancing for the British news company Newsquest, whose parent company is also Gannett. Her work will continue to appear in USA TODAY as well.
Fatema Hosseini:Taliban fighters tortured my colleagues
She's been stripped of her home but not her voice.
"I want to go and meet the Afghan refugees in the camps and tell their stories," she said. "And I want to find the other Afghan journalists out there who are covering these stories. I can be a bridge. Maybe together we can change the history, because Afghanistan's repeating itself again and again.
"Someone has to stop this, right?"
Help support journalists like these:Subscribe to USA TODAY
The Backstory: Civil rights lessons. Why we need to learn about 1961 to better understand 2021.
The Backstory: Long COVID causes fatigue, pain. Here's what long-haulers want you to know.
Nicole Carroll is the editor-in-chief of USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter here. Thank you for supporting our journalists and journalism. You can subscribe here.
