Terry Gross, NPR

CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward can’t stop looking at the bruise on her arm. It’s a reminder of her harrowing escape last week from Afghanistan.

At the end of a trip reporting on the fall of the Afghan government, Ward found the Kabul airport thronged with people desperate to leave the country. She and her crew held hands and formed a chain, but when the gate to their flight opened, the crowd closed in upon them.

“I was the last one [in line],” Ward says. “And this person on the other side just grabbed my arm and just ripped me through the door. And honestly, I think all of us were crying because it was so heartbreaking and intense and visceral.”

Ward flew out of Kabul on Saturday on a U.S. Air Force flight to Doha, Qatar. There were about 300 evacuees on her flight, but she’s still thinking about the people left behind: “There were little children who were howling and wailing. And you were standing there thinking: This is so wrong. Why do I get to go in? Just because I have this passport? It just feels very wrong.”

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