The fall of Kabul and its aftermath vividly described in two new podcasts — review

This time last year, Nato withdrew the last of its forces from Afghanistan, prompting the Taliban to seize control. Stuart Ramsay, Sky News’s chief correspondent, was there when Taliban fighters arrived in the capital Kabul in a procession of vehicles, led by a white flag. Over the following days, the city fell and a humanitarian disaster unfolded at the airport as Afghans tried to flee the country. Around 18,000 people were evacuated to the UK, though thousands more were left behind, and some died in the chaos.

The new Sky podcast, Out of Afghanistan, hosted by Ramsay, revisits the scenes at Kabul airport through the testimony of those who were there and who made it out. The Afghan contributors do so using only their first names, out of fear for the safety of their relatives still in Afghanistan. We hear from Sherbano, whose husband Yusef had travelled to the UK in advance and who was given instructions to go with her daughter and nephew to the airport. Her recollections of moving through the crush over several days, without food or water and enduring searing heat in the day and freezing temperatures at night, make for tough listening.

The podcast goes on to follow Sherbano and other Afghans after their arrival in the UK. Most arrived with few or no possessions and spent months in hotels, often with whole families living in a single room. While we hear from local officials charged with the task of helping refugees find work and housing, the bulk of the contributions come from the families themselves. The result is a series that offers a nuanced picture of what it is to leave your home and start over in a new country in just the clothes you stand up in.

The PRX/Project Brazen series Kabul Falling, hosted by the Afghan-British journalist Nelufar Hedayat, goes deeper into the chaos at Kabul airport and the days and weeks that followed, offering first-hand accounts from Afghans, among them journalists and former employees of US and Nato forces, who, having been promised safe passage, were turned away. One woman describes being sexually assaulted in the crowd, while a man recalls standing with his family in a stream of sewage while trying to show soldiers his papers.

The detail here is remarkable: we hear about the WhatsApp conversations with outside contacts trying to assist those fleeing; the whispered exchanges between husbands and wives shielding their children from their anxiety; the hazardous car journeys through checkpoints; the chilling doorstep encounters with the Taliban. A former US contractor named Tariq makes a four-hour trip on foot across Kabul to collect his son from kindergarten after the teachers abandoned their posts — a journey that becomes a terrifying odyssey. By the time he arrived, with his feet bleeding into his sandals, and was reunited with his son, I was a weeping mess.

podcasts.apple.com; kabulfalling.com