One Afghan who died falling from US evacuation plane was member of national youth soccer team

A 17-year-old member of Afghanistan's national youth soccer team was among the people killed trying to cling to a departing U.S. military plane at the Kabul airport this week, according to the country's official sports federation.

Zaki Anwari "was one of hundreds of young people who wanted to leave the country and, in an incident, fell off an American military plane and died," the group said in a statement.

A widely circulated video taken Monday showed at least two bodies falling from an airplane moments after takeoff. The Pentagon confirmed the deaths, adding that human remains were also discovered in the landing gear of the plane after it landed in Qatar. 

"He was kind and patient, but like so many of our young people he saw the arrival of the Taliban as the end of his dreams and sports opportunities. He had no hope and wanted a better life," Aref Peyman, the head of media relations for the sports federation and for Afghanistan’s Olympic Committee, said of Anwari.

The U.S. military has struggled to keep order at the Kabul airport as crowds of desperate Afghans storm the tarmac in an attempt to board evacuation aircraft.

During an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, President Biden, whose handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the subsequent immediate rise of the Taliban is being widely panned, dismissed the deaths, saying "That was four ago, five days ago."