‘I wondered whether a bullet had my name on it’: my terrifying 24-hour journey out of Afghanistan

I wanted to stay and tell the world what it was like living in a city besieged by extremists, but as my neighbourhood fell I had no choice but to leave. Soon, I was being pushed across the border in a wheelbarrow

I have bundles of cash stuffed into my socks, and my passport strapped flat against my chest. The passport has a dangerous word in it: reporter. This is the reason I am in disguise, holding a bundle of clothes and sitting in a wheelbarrow in the middle of a huge crowd trying to cross through a Taliban checkpoint into Pakistan. Dozens of people are arriving at the border town of Spin Boldak each minute from across the country. The main focus of the Taliban and international forces is Kabul airport where a chaotic evacuation is under way. Spin Boldak is the only other way to get out of Afghanistan.

A Reuters reporter was killed by the Taliban in the same town in July. Taliban fighters with black turbans are beating people with pipes; they keep opening and closing their part of the border as people push each other to get out.