Shocking images of children trapped at Kabul airport amid evacuation

A heartbreaking video showing a US Marine lifting a baby over a razor wire-topped wall at Kabul's airport caught global attention

Amid chaotic scenes at Kabul airport with children being stretched across the wall, President Biden acknowledged searing scenes at the airport which have included babies and children being passed to soldiers over razor-wire fences and men clinging to the outside of departing planes.

But he said they were part of the cost of departure.

"There is no way to evacuate this many people without pain and loss and heartbreaking images you see," Biden said as US marines have been left to tackle the huge humanitarian crisis at Hamid Karzai international airport.

A heart-breaking video showing a US Marine lifting a baby over a razor wire-topped wall at Kabul's airport caught global attention amid the chaos of thousands trying to flee Afghanistan newly controlled by the Taliban.

The video, which shows the infant, its diaper slipping off, being pulled up by one arm high above a crowd of Afghans seeking to enter the airport.

There was footage of civilians, including children running from gunfire at Kabul airport on Thursday as troops fired shots to hold back crowds desperate to flee Afghanistan.

Footage showed troops near the Kabul airport wall firing shots and distressed locals, including a man carrying a young child, running away through gun smoke.

A US official said that there are currently about 5,800 US troops at the airport in Kabul to help with evacuation efforts. 

Thousands of Afghans, including many women and children continue to wait outside Kabul airport as US and coalition countries continue to airlift citizens and other personnel from Afghanistan.

The Taliban conquered Afghanistan at lightning speed as foreign troops withdrew, surprising even its leaders

The US military released several photographs of soldiers helping out children of people hoping to escape Afghanistan.

In one, a soldier in his combat gear sits with a blanketed baby in his arms, smiling at the child like the father of a newborn, while his fellow soldiers stand nearby on alert.

In another, two female American soldiers hold babies in their arms. Still another depicts one of the US troops giving water to a little boy.

US marines hold babies amid the evacuation at Kabul airport. 

"This is the America we need to be," said US congressman and military veteran Peter Meijer on Twitter of the images.

The official Pentagon images stood out from inside the airport where thousands of people wait amid difficult conditions to board US C-17 cargo aircraft bound for Qatar.

In the Gulf state, they will still face days of waiting to be cleared by US immigration officials.

On one of the flights, an Afghan woman gave birth on board moments after landing at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the US Air Force said.

The woman delivered a baby girl in the cargo bay of a C-17 aircraft. The mother and baby were in good condition, the US Air Force said.

The World Health Organization and UN children's agency UNICEF has called for a humanitarian air bridge to deliver aid to Afghanistan to help more than 18 million people in need.

US Marines confirmed that the baby who was forced to scale the wall was reunited with her family and is safe at the airport.

Panicked Afghans have tried to board flights out of Kabul since last weekend, fearing reprisals.

Several thousand families as a result have packed into the airport with hundreds left outside the airport perimeter over the last few days forcing marines to let them inside.

Images of a family handing a child over a wall to a soldier and of young men clinging to the side of a military plane as it rolled down the runway for takeoff -- have shocked the world.

Families hoping for a miracle escape were crowded between the barbed-wire boundaries of an unofficial no man's land separating Taliban fighters from US troops and the remnants of an Afghan special forces brigade helping them.

There have been reports of the Taliban stopping, harassing and even detaining Afghans trying to flee, but the reporter said his convoy passed largely without incident.

A week after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, evacuation operations from foreign countries continue under extreme conditions marked by scenes of panic and desperation at Kabul airport. 

The US got the green light from Berlin for some of the evacuees to be directed to Germany, where it has a number of bases. 

About 1,150 people landed at the Ramstein base on Saturday, from where they are expected to depart for the United States within days.

The United States -- and other nations -- had plans to offer sanctuary this year to tens of thousands of Afghans following Washington's decision to withdraw all its troops from the country.

Those offered the chance of a new life abroad mostly included Afghans who had worked for foreign forces during the 20-year occupation that followed the ousting of the Taliban in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

But those plans were thrown into disarray by the Taliban's devastating rout of Afghan forces and their return to power on August 15.