Category Archives: Afghanistan

Afghan female MPs fight for their country in exile

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After a harrowing escape from the Taliban, Afghanistan’s female politicians are regrouping in Greece to fight for their country. Amie Ferris-Rotman reports on the work of the Afghan women’s parliament in exile

In November, 28 former female MPs from Afghanistan gathered in Greece. They’d fled the Taliban in dramatic fashion, and were now reunited in a community centre run by Melissa Network, a grassroots organisation for female migrants and refugees that played a role in their evacuation.

The journalist Amie Ferris-Rotman was there; she tells Nosheen Iqbal about the emotional first meeting of the Afghan women’s parliament in exile in Athens. There, the women – some junior politicians, some elder stateswomen, some from prominent wealthy political families, some from poorer backgrounds – traded stories of their escapes and shared hopes for the country they left behind. Shagufa Noorzai, 22, who had been the youngest member of parliament before the Afghan government fell, says she wants the women left behind in Afghanistan to know they have not been forgotten.

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‘The Taliban are seeking revenge’: ex-cultural worker on a UK project

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Omar is in hiding – concerned about his five daughters, he has applied to move to Britain

Omar* worked for a UK-funded cultural programme, working on human rights and cultural projects. He lost his work when the Taliban arrived, and has applied to move to Britain. He has five daughters and is particularly concerned about their welfare.

After the capture of Kabul by the Taliban, our lives changed completely because of my work for a British organisation. Although the Taliban said in a statement that they had declared an amnesty for government workers, they have not kept that promise. They are seeking revenge against those who worked with foreign institutions. I’ve heard reports of people being arrested at night and taken to unknown places.

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‘Gunmen were looking for my mum’: daughter of Afghan ex-radio boss

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Farkhunda’s sister and two brothers have disabilities and left their wheelchairs behind when fleeing a Taliban raid

Farkhunda’s* mother has run a feminist radio station in her conservative province for the best part of 20 years, in defiance of Taliban threats. She has three children with disabilities who were forced to abandon their wheelchairs when gunmen attacked their home about two months after the Taliban takeover. They are in hiding in a city safe house, but don’t know how they will survive longer term.

When the fighting closed in on our city in August we were moving around – one night in one place, one night in another place – staying with different relatives because my mum had received a lot of threats in the past.

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‘We’ve been forgotten’: the British embassy security guard in Kabul

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Abdullah says guards who risked their lives for the British cannot understand why they have been abandoned

Abdullah*, 34, was a security guard for the British embassy, employed under contract by GardaWorld, and had a senior management role, looking after other locally employed embassy guards. He and about 180 colleagues had hoped to be evacuated to the UK at the end of August, but the evacuation was stopped by a bomb at the airport. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) made a clear commitment that all GardaWorld staff would be allowed to travel to the UK, but this has not happened.

We’ve heard nothing from the Home Office or the FCDO and life is becoming very hard for everyone who worked for the British embassy. Surviving when there is no income and no work is very difficult. We’re still hoping we will get an email about evacuation plans, but we haven’t heard anything. The UK government is helping footballers and writers to leave the country, but there has been no help for us. We feel like we should be first in line because we risked our lives for the British government. It’s a huge disappointment for all of us.

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‘My nightmares came true’: ex-prosecutor of Afghan women’s abusers

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Negin overcame significant disadvantages to obtain her role but now fears those seeking revenge

The Taliban blighted *Negin’s childhood with their ban on girls’ education, but she overcame the late start to her schooling to become a senior prosecutor. Afghanistan’s legal system was slow and often corrupt, but it offered women some hope of escaping abusers and seeing their tormentors jailed. Now she fears that some of those men, freed in a Taliban-orchestrated mass jailbreak last summer, want revenge.

My life was already affected by the Taliban long before they took over Afghanistan this summer. I only started school at 14, because they were in power in the 90s and did not allow girls to study. Once I could go to school, I graduated and went to university.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

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Taliban forces pepper-spray women’s rights protesters in Kabul

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One woman reportedly taken to hospital after protest calling for right to work and education is stopped

Taliban forces have fired pepper spray at a group of women protesting in Afghanistan’s capital to demand rights to work and education.

Since seizing control of the country by force in August, the Taliban authorities have imposed creeping restrictions on Afghans, especially on women.

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‘We are struggling’: two former officials at Afghan women’s affairs ministry

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Gul Bano and Karima’s former offices are in the hands of the Taliban – and they fear for their lives

Gul Bano* and Karima* are activists who ran provincial branches of the ministry of women’s affairs in two different parts of Afghanistan. Their former offices have been taken over by the Taliban’s feared enforcers, the ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice. They are now in hiding, afraid of the men they helped put in prison for domestic violence and other abuses, many of them in the Taliban or with family links to the militants.

In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org

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Calls for release of Kabul University professor detained by Taliban

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Prof Faizullah Jalal, an outspoken critic of Afghanistan’s ruling group, was arrested for alleged remarks on social media

Supporters of a prominent university professor, and one of Afghanistan’s most vocal critics of the Taliban, are calling for his release after he was arrested on Saturday.

Faizullah Jalal, a professor at Kabul University, was detained by the Taliban after the group claimed he was responsible for a series of messages on social media attacking them.

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Joy as baby given to US soldier during Afghan withdrawal is reunited with relatives

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Sohail Ahmadi, who was being raised by a local Kabul taxi driver, will hopefully now travel to the US to live with his parents

An infant boy handed in desperation to a US soldier across an airport wall in the chaos of the American evacuation of Afghanistan has been found and reunited with his relatives.

The baby, Sohail Ahmadi, was just two months old when he went missing on 19 August as thousands of people rushed to leave Afghanistan as it fell to the Taliban.

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Taliban stop Afghan women using bathhouses in northern provinces

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Decision to close public hammams – most people’s only chance for a warm wash – sparks anger in light of country’s mounting crises

The Taliban sparked outrage this week by announcing that women in northern Afghanistan would no longer be allowed to use communal bathhouses.

The use of bathhouses, or hammams, is an ancient tradition that remains for many people the only chance for a warm wash during the country’s bitterly cold winters.

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Ex-Afghan president gives first interview since fleeing Kabul – video

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The former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani gave his first interview since fleeing Kabul when it fell to the Taliban in August. Ghani told the BBC he was pressured into fleeing Kabul by helicopter by his 'terrified' national security adviser and the commander of the collapsing presidential security detail.

'They said the PPS [presidential protection service] has collapsed, [and] if I take a stand they will all be killed,' Ghani said. 'He did not give me more than two minutes'

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Ashraf Ghani blames international allies over Afghanistan’s fall to Taliban

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In first interview since fleeing Kabul in August, former president says US ‘erased’ Afghans in years of peace talks with militants

The former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani has broken his silence with his first interview since fleeing Kabul four months ago, in effect blaming the international community and in particular the Americans for the fall of the republic.

Ghani told the BBC he was rushed into fleeing Kabul on a helicopter by his “terrified” national security adviser, Hamdullah Mohib, and the commander of the collapsing presidential security detail.

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‘On the brink’: drought and politics leave Afghans fighting famine

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Aid collapse after Taliban took control means just 2% of people have enough to eat, UN says

In his seven decades, Mehrajuddin has been a police commander, a fighter for the mujahideen, a district governor and a prosecutor, and even briefly worked in Europe. Until this year, he has never struggled to feed his family.

Now they have just one meal a day, hard discs of stale bread soaked in water until they soften to mush. “All the family are starving,” he says bluntly as he waits at a food distribution centre in Kabul for a handout of lentils, rice, flour and oil. “I even worry about dying, because if it happens tomorrow, how will my family pay for my funeral?”

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Gordon Brown: west is sleepwalking into Afghanistan disaster

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Ex-PM warns poverty and starvation mean country is at risk of world’s biggest humanitarian crisis

The west is “sleepwalking into the biggest humanitarian crisis of our times” in Afghanistan, Gordon Brown has warned, as he called for a support package to save the country from economic and social collapse after the Taliban’s takeover.

Four months after the western-backed government was overthrown following a mass military withdrawal, the former UK prime minister said the case for action was not based only on morals but also “in our self-interest”.

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Afghan ex-BBC journalist stranded for months due to Home Office scheme delays

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Mudassar Kadir said ‘zero progress’ made since he and his family arrived at Dubai refugee centre

An Afghan former BBC journalist who managed to flee the Taliban has been stranded in a refugee camp for months because of delays to a resettlement scheme promised by the UK government.

Mudassar Kadir* is the only one of 14 former BBC employees to have escaped Afghanistan since the Taliban took over in August. The other 13 remain in hiding in fear of their lives.

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Briton missing in Afghanistan after reports of Taliban arrest

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Grant Bailey was working as security consultant in Kabul where he liaised with US state department

A British man is missing in Afghanistan after a report he has been detained by the Taliban. Grant Bailey was arrested in the Afghan capital, Kabul, where he has been working as a security consultant.

The arrest came during a Taliban security clampdown, according to the Daily Mirror.

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The best of the long read in 2021

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Our 20 favourite pieces of the year

After growing up in a Zimbabwe convulsed by the legacy of colonialism, when I got to Oxford I realised how many British people still failed to see how empire had shaped lives like mine – as well as their own

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‘The need is still there’: last young refugees arrive in UK as family reunion route closes

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Activists lament that a safe, legal way into Britain has closed with Brexit, when stranded children need it as much as ever

‘When I was a child in Afghanistan I loved to watch my uncle play chess. Now I have joined the local club here.” Samir is grinning as he talks about settling into life on England’s south coast. “I’m very happy here, just being with my family, going for walks to look at the Christmas lights. It’s really beautiful.”

After arriving in Greece alone two years ago, when he was just 16, and spending many months homeless and terrified in the port city of Patras, Samir recently made a journey that most refugees can only dream about. He said goodbye to the friends he had made in a camp for unaccompanied minors – other teenagers from Somalia, Iraq and Palestine – and travelled safely and legally to join his father and sister in the UK.

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Hundreds queue for passports in bid to leave Afghanistan

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Crowds brave sub-zero temperatues after Taliban announces it will resume issuing travel documents

Hundreds of people have braved sub-zero temperatures in Afghanistan’s capital to queue outside the passport office, a day after the Taliban government announced it would resume issuing travel documents.

Many began their wait the previous night and most stood patiently in single file – some desperate to leave the country for medical treatment, others to escape the Islamists’ renewed rule. Tense Taliban personnel periodically charged crowds that formed at the front of the queue and at a nearby roadblock.

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