The chaotic scenes Monday at Hamid Karzai International Airport captured by news crews and cellphones convey a terror and desperate rush to escape the country, which is now overrun by Taliban militants in the lead-up to the complete departure of U.S. forces.

Desperate scenes played out at Kabul’s international airport on Monday as thousands rushed to exit Afghanistan after Taliban fighters took control of the capital, with Reuters reporting at least five people were killed as people tried to forcibly enter planes leaving the country.

Citing witnesses, Reuters said it wasn’t clear whether the victims died of gunshots or in a stampede at Hamid Karzai International Airport. Earlier it reported that U.S. forces fired in the air to prevent thousands of citizens from running onto the tarmac, the last remaining area under American control. Afghanistan’s aviation authority suspended flights out of the country and asked people not to rush to the airport.

The U.S. had announced late Sunday in Washington it was taking steps to secure the airport as it looked to evacuate thousands of American citizens, as well as locally employed staff and their families. The move came a day after American-backed President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and the Taliban said it would soon declare a new “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” after seizing the presidential palace.

“No one can really leave,” Kamal Alam, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and senior adviser to the Massoud Foundation, told. Alam was stuck in Afghanistan, his flight out of the country canceled. “If you don’t have a visa or passport, which the majority of Afghans don’t, you’re not going.”

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on Sunday evening, reportedly to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, as the Taliban entered the presidential palace and declared the war “over.” Ghani said he fled to prevent “a flood of bloodshed.”

“The Taliban have won with the judgment of their swords and guns, and are now responsible for the honor, property and self-preservation of their countrymen,” Ghani said.