Category Archives: Afghanistan

‘It feels good’: Kashmir folk singer’s rise from dusty street to music star

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Noor Mohammad Shah has given traditional Sufi music a new lease of life after a chance encounter

Noor Mohammad Shah had always happily lived a life of obscurity. Born in a small village in the conflict-ridden state of Kashmir in India, Shah had been introduced to the mystical world of Sufi music as a child and for decades since had made a meagre but fulfilling living singing traditional songs and performing on his rabab, a lute-like music instrument, at weddings and village festivals.

Yet it was a chance encounter between Shah and a group of young men, who happened to pass by as the god-fearing musician was playing his instrument on a dusty street corner, that would propel him into becoming one of Kashmir’s most famous modern rabab musicians.

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Afghan civilians forced to fight Taliban as foreign troops depart

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Violence is spiralling with militants seizing at least 50 of county’s nearly 400 districts since May

Haji Ghoulam Farouq Siawshani watched the Taliban rampage across northern Afghanistan this month, weighing up the threat from militants on his doorstep. Then, 10 days ago, the former oil trader turned militia commander issued a call to arms.

“Where the Taliban go, they bring destruction, and they are one kilometre away from my village,” he told the Guardian. “We decided to respond.”

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US plans to evacuate thousands of interpreters before Afghanistan pullout

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• Operation expected to include up to 50,000 people

• Interpreters and families fear reprisals from Taliban

The United States is planning to evacuate a group of vulnerable Afghan interpreters before the US military completes its withdrawal from Afghanistan so they can wrap up their visa applications from safety, according to officials.

The evacuation of the at-risk Afghans will include their family members for a total of as many as 50,000 people, a senior Republican lawmaker told Reuters.

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Hungary’s LGBT protests and Juneteenth Day: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms from China to Colombia

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‘We have more in common than what separates us’: refugee stories, told by refugees

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In One Thousand Dreams, award-winning photographer Robin Hammond hands the camera to refugees. Often reduced by the media’s toxic or well-meaning narratives, the portraits and interviews capture a different and more complex tale

Robin Hammond has spent two decades crisscrossing the developing world and telling other people’s stories. From photographing the Rohingya forced out of Myanmar and rape survivors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to documenting the lives of people in countries where their sexuality is illegal, his work has earned him award after award.

But for his latest project the photographer has embarked on a paradigm shift: to remove himself – and others like him – from the process entirely. Instead, as part of an in-depth exploration of the refugee experience in Europe, the stories of those featured are told by those who, arguably, know them best: other refugees.

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Eradicating polio is finally within reach. Why is the UK taking its foot off the pedal? | Anne Wafula Strike

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Instead of cutting the aid budget – including 95% from the plan to stamp out the disease – Britain should take a global lead

Despite the Covid pandemic, there have been just two recorded cases of wild polio in 2021 – in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the two remaining hiding places for the disease. But eradication is not guaranteed. Polio is virulent and spreads quickly. Even one case poses a threat to unvaccinated children everywhere, which is why a new strategy launched last week by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) outlines a plan to utilise this small window of opportunity for the world to end polio for good.

A 99.9% fall in polio cases globally in recent decades is thanks in large part to the GPEI and its supporters. The British government’s recent announcement that it will slash its contributions to the GPEI by more than 95% has been a body blow. The funding cut amounts to almost a quarter of the annual World Health Organization polio eradication budget.

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‘I’m sacrificing myself’: agony of Kabul’s secret sex workers

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Decades of war and grinding poverty have forced more Afghans into risky double lives to survive

When Zainab met her first client almost two years ago, she was drunk, drugged-up, and had passed out by the time he started raping her. She had never touched alcohol before, but was told she’d be better off unconscious. Terrified, she reluctantly agreed.

The man was gone when the then 18-year-old woke up; her body in pain, her thoughts filled with regret.

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Jailing of Afghans for Lesbos migrant camp fire a ‘parody of justice’

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Lawyers criticise 10-year terms given to four asylum seekers, saying three should have been tried in juvenile court

Draconian prison sentences handed down to four Afghan youths found guilty of starting the fire that destroyed the Moria migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesbos last year have been described as a “parody of justice”.

Defence lawyers called the penalties “unfair”, saying three of the accused were under the age of 18 at the time and should have been tried before a juvenile court. The asylum seekers received 10-year jail terms each.

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How the ‘good war’ went bad: elite soldiers from Australia, UK and US face a reckoning

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As coalition troops prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan after 20 years, former soldiers, key officers and the public are asking what went wrong with some special forces

“Whatever we do … ,” one Australian special forces soldier said of his service in Afghanistan, “I can tell you the Brits and the US are far, far worse.

“I’ve watched our young guys stand by and hero worship what they were doing, salivating at how the US were torturing people. You just stand there and roll your eyes and wait for it to end.”

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‘Right thing to do’: Afghan interpreters allowed to resettle in UK over safety fears – video

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Moves to relocate hundreds of Afghans who worked for the British military and government will be accelerated owing to fears for their safety as foreign forces prepare to leave the country. More than 3,000 Afghans, including their relatives, are expected to settle in the UK. The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said it was ‘the right thing to do’, adding that ‘they sacrificed a lot to look after us and now we’re going to do the same’

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More Afghans who worked for British forces to resettle in UK

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Government will step up scheme saving interpreters and others from reprisals as international troops leave

Moves to relocate to the UK hundreds of Afghans who worked for the British military and government will reportedly be accelerated as foreign forces leave the country.

The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy was launched this year, allowing the Afghans, who mostly worked as interpreters, to settle in Britain. More than 1,400 Afghans and their families have already relocated to the UK, and hundreds more received funding for education and training.

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At least three killed as bomb strikes minivan in northern Afghanistan

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Officials say vehicle carrying university staff targeted in Kapisa, with bomb set off remotely

A roadside bomb has struck a minivan full of university staff in Afghanistan’s northern Kapisa province, killing three teachers and wounding 15 others, police said on Saturday.

The country’s interior ministry spokesman, Tariq Arian, said on Saturday that the minivan was targeted while travelling from Al-Beroni University. Provincial police spokesman Shayeq Shoresh said the bomb was set off by remote control.

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Taliban threaten Afghan security guards who work for Australian embassy in Kabul

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Guards say their work for Australia has made them and their families targets for retribution

The Taliban have publicly threatened Afghan security guards who have worked for the soon-to-be-shut Australian embassy, circulating pictures of them online and warning they would be targeted for cooperating with a foreign government.

The Australian government announced this week that it was shutting its embassy in Kabul, citing “an increasingly uncertain security environment” and saying its diplomats would not be safe “in light of the imminent international military withdrawal from Afghanistan”.

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Afghanistan’s doctors braced for rapid spread of India Covid variant

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The country has no testing capacity for the B.1.617.2 strain and medics are concerned about resilience of health system

Doctors in Afghanistan have expressed fears that the Covid-19 variant first discovered in India could now be spreading quickly in the country.

At Kabul’s main Covid hospital, where all 100 beds are occupied, doctors said that many critically ill patients had recently returned from India. Up to 10 people die here every day.

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‘I had to find them’: kidnapped filmmaker Mellissa Fung on her mission to find the Boko Haram girls

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After being abducted on assignment in Afghanistan, journalist Mellissa Fung shares an intense bond with the teenage girls who were held captive by Boko Haram

The journalist and filmmaker Mellissa Fung is showing me her wound – or to be precise, the scar where her wound once was. It’s from the struggle with one of the Afghan rebels who, 12 years ago, kidnapped Fung near Kabul and held her in a pit in the ground for a month, a place she refers to simply, and rather chillingly as, “the hole”.

“In combat training they teach you not to fight back, but I played ice hockey as a kid so I couldn’t help it,” Fung says. “The guy had a knife so I learned my lesson.”

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Gaza damage and Glasgow raids: human rights this fortnight in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Peru

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Climate disasters ‘caused more internal displacement than war’ in 2020

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Refugee organisation says 30m new displacements last year were due to floods, storms or wildfires

Intense storms and flooding triggered three times more displacements than violent conflicts did last year, as the number of people internally displaced worldwide hit the highest level on record.

There were at least 55 million internally displaced people (IDPs) by the end of last year, according to figures published by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

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Afghanistan: fighting resumes in south after three-day ceasefire for Eid

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Taliban and government forces clash in Helmand, the scene of intense battles following US troop withdrawal

Fighting between the Taliban and Afghan government forces has resumed in the southern province of Helmand, officials said, ending a three-day ceasefire agreed by the warring sides to mark the Eid al-Fitr holiday.

There were clashes on Sunday on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, which has seen intense fighting since the United States began its final troop withdrawal from Afghanistan on 1 May, an Afghan military spokesperson and a local official said.

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‘Hosnia had dreams’: grief in Kabul as girls’ school targeted

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Hazara community in mourning but defiant after more than 60 people killed in school bomb blasts


Latifa and Hosnia had been sharing a wooden bench in their classroom at Kabul’s Sayed Al-Shuhada school for the past three years.

When Latifa transferred to Sayed Al-Shuhada, the two girls were immediately drawn to each other and became best friends, always together in their free time, studying side by side, walking home together after school. They found comfort in each other’s presence; support in a place that has never been easy for girls and women.

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Taliban declares three-day Eid ceasefire as 11 killed in new bombing

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Bus attack comes after jihadist group denies atrocity at secondary school that killed at least 50 people

At least 11 people have been killed and dozens injured in the bombing of a bus in Afghanistan’s southern Zabul province.

The blast took place late on Sunday night, said Zabul’s provincial governor’s spokesman Gul Islam Sial, adding that 25 people were injured including women and children who were in critical condition.

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