Mansouri was in Tokyo, having misplaced within the final 16 within the +80kg class on the Olympics, when a brother, who lives in London, referred to as him.
His sibling’s message was stark: “Don’t return to Afghanistan. I do know every little thing will go unhealthy.”
A coalition of overseas forces, led by the USA and together with the UK, had been withdrawing from Afghanistan after making a cope with the Taliban, twenty years after eradicating the hardline Islamist group from energy.
Whereas Mansouri was competing in Tokyo, the Taliban made fast territorial good points as US troops pulled out and diminished assist for the Afghan military.
Regardless of what he was listening to, Mansouri instructed his brother he was going house: “I’m carrying my flag. I’ll dwell in Afghanistan till I am protected.
“I’ve to go to Afghanistan as a result of if I’m going to London, they might say, ‘oh, he was possibly carrying the flag only for present’. However it’s not like that.
“I went to again to Afghanistan and after two weeks the scenario obtained very unhealthy.”
The Taliban took over Kabul on 15 August 2021, with the capital descending into chaos. Fearing the return of their fundamentalist rule, Afghans and foreigners rushed to seek out room on flights in another country.
Mansouri, who was 19 on the time, mentioned he shortly realised he wanted to hitch them.
“Embassies closed, every little thing closed,” he says. “I used to be considering, how can I keep it up my sport life? How can I’m going to a different competitors?
“So I mentioned with my dad and my mum and I instructed them, ‘If you wish to assist me, you must go outdoors the nation’.”
With a father who labored with the Afghan military and a brother who labored with People, there was a urgent cause past sport for the household to need to go away – the chance of reprisals.
Mansouri packed two small baggage, stuffing in no matter sporting equipment he might. His mom, nonetheless recovering from a again operation, father, brother, sister and niece all determined to make the journey.
“The scenario was very loopy,” Mansouri says. “Everybody was making an attempt to get contained in the airport and a few of them didn’t have paperwork, nothing. We have been outdoors the airport one or two days.
“Kids have been crying and, as possibly you noticed within the information or on TV, the scenario was very unhealthy.”
Tv footage confirmed frantic scenes as folks ran on to the tarmac making an attempt to get on to planes and gunshots have been fired into the air.
Some folks have been reported to have died after falling from the underside of a aircraft they have been clinging to, whereas others have been killed in a crush outdoors the airport.
Mansouri and his household finally obtained on a US evacuation flight, not figuring out once they may subsequent see the remainder of their kin.
The day after they landed within the United Arab Emirates, a suicide bomb assault on Kabul airport killed 170 civilians and 13 US troopers.
Amongst those that misplaced their lives was Mansouri’s taekwondo team-mate Mohammed Jan Sultani.
Sultani, 25, had left his spouse and two younger youngsters additional again as he tried to get nearer to the gate and safe their passage out the of the nation. Unwittingly, he was transferring nearer to the blast that may kill him.
“I misplaced my buddy, I used to be actually shut with him,” says Mansouri. “I used to be actually unhappy. He was additionally making an attempt to go away the nation. I used to be considering, what’s occurring?”
The US and its coalition companions evacuated greater than 123,000 civilians in August 2021, with the UK airlifting round 15,000 Afghans and British nationals.
Nonetheless, an inquiry by MPs in 2022 discovered the UK’s withdrawal from Afghanistan had been a “catastrophe” and that “mismanagement” of the evacuation “doubtless value lives”.
