'All we can do is pray': Kiwi resident from Kabul fears his brother will be target due to his work with Kiwis

New Zealand forces spent 20 years in Afghanistan as a part of international efforts - but the Taliban seized Kabul overnight. Photo / File

"All we can do is pray."

Those are the words of an Afghan man living in New Zealand who fears his brother's life could be at risk if the Taliban discover he worked with foreigners in a law firm.

The now New Zealand resident, who can't be named for his brother's safety, said he worked as a lawyer with people from the US and New Zealand for six years in Kabul before moving to New Zealand.

"[They might say] 'His brother was working with Americans, with New Zealanders, with lawyers'. This is what makes me concerned, I can't sleep during nights."

Desperate images and videos have been streaming out of Afghanistan's capital this week after the Taliban retook the city on Sunday.

The city fell just months after the US began withdrawing troops from the country after nearly two decades.

The Afghan man is still in contact with his brother but said most of the time he was left in the dark because the internet isn't working well there.

Over the phone he said his brother told him no one was going outside because they were scared of the Taliban.

"I said 'please bro, don't go out, just stay at home while such things are going on'. And he said 'yeah, staying at home is the best option'."

The man said the Taliban do not care about life and will kill people there.

"My wife was crying today in the morning, she's been crying, she doesn't know what to do [about what's happening in their home country]. We have three children here."

But he said with her parents and his brother being stuck there they physically can't feel well.

He told the Herald he doesn't know what will happen but he believed the Government could save his brother.

"We ask them if they can get our families, brothers and get them out of Afghanistan."

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern this week announced a NZDF plane will be sent to Afghanistan to evacuate New Zealanders and Afghan nationals who worked with NZ forces.

Ardern said 53 New Zealanders and 37 Afghan nationals who had worked alongside the NZDF were still in Afghanistan.

The Government was "very concerned" about the situation.

A C-130 military transport aircraft and around 40 NZDF personnel would be sent to Afghanistan to assist with evacuations, Defence Force chief Kevin Short said. The deployment was expected to last for a month.

Ardern said earlier that up to 200 Afghan locals could be included in New Zealand's extraction operation.

A Kiwi lawyer who runs the legal partnership the man worked at in Kabul, and who lived there until 2017 is also concerned for friends there.

That person, who doesn't want to be named for her contact's safety, said it was "horrifying" to see the images coming out of the country.

Her office and the other partners who run it are still there, and until recently she had been travelling back and forth between countries.

"It's hard to explain how different this is, it's really unprecedented. I can't possibly imagine."

Just last week she said they thought her husband would go back to the country for work this year.

She said a colleague with connections to the Government had members of the Taliban knock on their door when they weren't home.

That person, she said, was now in hiding.