Afghan footballer Zaki Anwari dies falling from US evacuation airplane, confirms sports federation

"With great sorrow and grief, we received information that Zaki Anwari, one of the national team's junior footballers, has lost his life in a tragic event," the statement said.   

Afghanistan's General Directorate of Physical Education and Sports revealed on social media Thursday morning that one of the casualties who fell from the US military C-17 plane on Monday was a youngster on the country's junior national football squad.
"With great sorrow and grief, we received information that Zaki Anwari, one of the national team's junior footballers, has lost his life in a tragic event," the statement said. 

The post went on to say that young Anwari was "attempting to flee the nation, like hundreds of other young people in his country. He was killed when he fell from a US military jet."
Hundreds of people raced to the tarmac at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Monday, one day after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan's capital city Kabul on Sunday, trying to find a way out of the nation.

As the C-17 plane taxied to the runway, many people clung to the landing gear as it gathered speed. Shortly later, a video emerged showing a C-17 rising above Kabul and two people dropping from the aeroplane.
According to a statement issued by Afghanistan's General Directorate of Body and Sports, Anwari was among "many other countrymen who crashed to the earth while flying" in quest of a "better future in America."

Earlier, as evacuations from Afghanistan increased as the Taliban pledged peace, a Taliban commander at Afghanistan's capital's Hamid Karzai International Airport stated that at least 40 people had been murdered in shootings by foreign forces and a stampede at the Kabul airport since Monday.

In a statement published by Afghan media, he stated that people should not believe false rumours regarding international travel and avoid travelling to airports.