Category Archives: Afghanistan

Pakistan starts mass deportation of undocumented Afghans

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Authorities go ‘door to door’ to round up and return thousands – many who fled from the Taliban – on first day of nationwide crackdown

Pakistan has begun arresting and deporting Afghan refugees who missed Wednesday morning’s deadline for them to leave, a government minister has announced. At least 200,000 people have already returned to Afghanistan voluntarily, said Pakistan’s acting interior minister, Sarfraz Bugti.

The crackdown on unregistered foreigners, part of Pakistan’s new anti-immigrant policy, affects some 2 million Afghans thought to be in Pakistan without documentation.

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‘Don’t ignore us’: Afghans awaiting UK relocation fear time is running out

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Some have waited years in Pakistan for Britain to fulfil its promises – and are now at risk of deportation

For a year after the fall of Kabul and the swift withdrawal of international allies from Afghanistan, Jawed* and his family were in hiding, evading the ruling Taliban as they counted the days waiting for relocation promises from the British government to be realised.

“But that didn’t happen. To this day, two years and two months [later], we’re still living in limbo,” Jawed, a former English teacher for the British Council, said from a hotel in Islamabad.

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Afghans who fled Taliban to UK ‘set to be made homeless at Christmas’

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Home Office has imposed a 15 December deadline to eject people who worked for UK in Afghanistan from hotels, say councils

More than 1,000 Afghans in the UK face being made homeless days before Christmas after the Home Office imposed a fresh deadline to eject them from hotels.

The Local Government Association (LGA) revealed the number of at-risk Afghans, which includes families, after the Home Office last week imposed the new deadline of 15 December.

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SAS had ‘gone too far’ in Afghanistan, inquiry into claims of unlawful killings told

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Memo by military police chief said there was ‘no shortage of detractors’ in Whitehall of elite unit’s conduct

Senior figures in Downing Street were calling in 2016 for the SAS to have its “wings clipped” as it emerged that a growing number of suspected murders of Afghan civilians were being investigated by military police.

Critics of the elite unit’s behaviour were led by Jeremy Heywood, who at the time was cabinet secretary to the then prime minister, Theresa May, according to a memo cited last week during a public inquiry into allegations of unlawful SAS killings in Afghanistan.

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Earthquake strikes Afghanistan region still reeling from week of devastation

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Another 6.3-magnitude quake strikes outside Herat in western area where thousands were killed last week

A powerful 6.3-magnitude earthquake has struck western Afghanistan, just over a week after strong quakes and aftershocks killed thousands of people and flattened entire villages in the same region.

The US Geological Survey said the latest quake’s epicentre was about 21 miles (34km) outside Herat, the provincial capital, and the focus was 5 miles below the surface.

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SAS shot dead two sleeping Afghans in war crime, public inquiry told

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Two children were seriously injured in 2012 incident, inquiry into 80 deaths hears

The SAS shot dead two Afghan adults who were sleeping in an incident in August 2012 in which two children were seriously injured, a public inquiry has heard.

The barrister representing victims’ families in a public inquiry into the killing of 80 civilians by the SAS in Afghanistan said the incident amounted to war crimes committed by British soldiers.

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Fears of more casualties as further earthquakes hit Afghanistan

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Hospitals are at capacity since the quakes occurred around the city of Herat, and the Taliban are ill-equipped to respond effectively

Another powerful earthquake struck western Afghanistan on Wednesday morning, days after a series of quakes in the same region killed thousands of people.

The 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit an area 28km (17 miles) south of Herat’s regional capital at 5.11am local time, killing one person and injuring at least 150 people.

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Four British men freed by Taliban after being held in Afghanistan

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The men were all detained over allegedly breaking the country’s laws earlier this year

Four British nationals who were held in Taliban custody in Afghanistan have been released and are to return to the UK on Tuesday.

The Presidium Network, a British not-for-profit organisation that works in conflict zones and has assisted the men, named three of them as Kevin Cornwell, a charity medic; Miles Routledge and Ian Purchase. The other cannot be named for legal reasons.

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Afghan earthquake survivors sleep amid rubble as death toll nears 3,000

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People spend second night in ruined villages where desperate search for loved ones is continuing

Survivors of a series of powerful earthquakes that struck western Afghanistan on Saturday have spent a second night sleeping amid the rubble of demolished villages as they search for loved ones using shovels. The death toll is approaching 3,000, according to senior Taliban officials.

In the regional capital of Herat city people slept in public parks and streets, fearing further tremors. The United States Geological Survey reported quakes on Monday of magnitude 5.9, 4.9 and 4.7 in rural areas.

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Inquiry to open into claims British soldiers summarily killed 80 Afghans

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Public inquiry into alleged actions of SAS units to begin amid victims’ families pleas for truth to be uncovered

A public inquiry into allegations that 80 Afghans were summarily killed by members of three different British SAS units begins on Monday amid pleas from victims’ families to uncover the truth behind the deaths.

Mansour Aziz, whose brother and sister-in-law were shot and killed while sleeping by British elite forces during a night raid on 6 August 2012, said he hoped the inquiry would establish why his home had been targeted.

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Afghanistan earthquake has killed more than 2,000, Taliban say

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Magnitude-6.3 earthquake struck near Herat on Saturday, with hundreds of houses reported destroyed

The death toll from a series of earthquakes in western Afghanistan has risen sharply to more than 2,000 people, according to a Taliban spokesperson, as rescuers searched for survivors among the ruins of razed villages.

“More than 2,060 people are dead and over 10,000 are injured,” he told the Guardian. “Many more people are still under the rubble.”

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Dozens of people killed after powerful earthquakes hit Afghanistan, UN says

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UN says estimate of 320 fatalities is being verified, although local authorities put the death toll at 100, with 500 injured

Hundreds of people are feared dead after a series of powerful earthquakes hit western Afghanistan.

The United Nations said more than 320 had lost their lives before later saying the figure was still being verified. A local Taliban official told the Guardian the death toll “is much higher than that”.

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‘Anything for my family’: Venezuelans in US welcome temporary protected status

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Asylum seekers who arrived before the end of July – about 472,000 – will now be able to legally live and work in the US

Venezuelan asylum seekers in the United States have welcomed the news of temporary permission to live and work in the country as a vital “helping hand” after the Biden administration announced that it would extend temporary protected status (TPS) to nearly half a million Venezuelan nationals.

The Department of Homeland Security announced that the TPS extension now includes those who arrived in the US by the end of July, whereas the previous cutoff date was 8 March 2021.

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‘Despair is settling in’: female suicides on rise in Taliban’s Afghanistan

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Unofficial figures point to a mental health crisis amid severe restrictions on Afghan women’s lives

First, her dreams of becoming a doctor were dashed by the Taliban’s ban on education. Then her family set up a forced marriage to her cousin, a heroin addict. Latifa* felt her future had been snatched away.

“I had two options: to marry an addict and live a life of misery or take my own life,” said the 18-year-old in a phone interview from her home in central Ghor province. “I chose the latter.”

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Taliban ban women from national park in Afghanistan

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Minister says women visiting the lakes of Band-e-Amir have not been wearing their hijabs properly

The Taliban have banned women from visiting one of Afghanistan’s most popular national parks, adding to a long list of restrictions aimed at shrinking women’s access to public places.

Thousands of people visit Band-e-Amir national park each year, taking in its stunning landscape of sapphire-blue lakes and towering cliffs in the country’s central Bamiyan province.

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Ben Roberts-Smith: judge won’t make documents decision in war crimes probe due to bias perception

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Justice Anthony Besanko recuses himself from court decision relating to war crimes investigation into Australian veteran

The judge who dismissed Ben Roberts-Smith’s defamation action will not decide whether criminal investigators probing war crimes allegations against the decorated veteran should have access to sensitive information heard in closed court during the defamation trial.

Justice Anthony Besanko has recused himself from deciding whether investigators from the government’s Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) should be allowed to access information tendered in closed court, over concerns of a potential perception of bias.

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‘My goals in life vanished’: Afghan students rocked by US visa denials

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Students trying to attend university in the US tell of their frustration after being rejected over the ‘immigrant intent’ test

Yalda Azamee blinked back tears as she stared down at the American consular officer.

“He did not even give me a chance to explain myself; he rejected me right away. He didn’t even look at my documents,” she said, rushing out of the US embassy building on to the streets of Islamabad to cry.

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Colourful kites fill London sky in solidarity with people of Afghanistan

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Event celebrates Afghan culture and protests against restrictions on women and girls two years after Taliban offensive

Hordes of colourful kites soared into the sky over London in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan on the second anniversary of the fall of their homeland to the Taliban.

Participants said the event, at Primrose Hill in north London, was intended to demonstrate how “colourful” the culture of Afghanistan once was and to provide “a voice, far from our home” for all the Afghans, especially women and girls, living under the Taliban’s oppressive regime.

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Thousands of Afghan judges and legal staff remain at risk post-Taliban takeover

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Two years on, people who worked in the country’s now-defunct legal system remain in grave danger from reprisals for their work

Nearly 4,000 prosecutors and legal staff members face the threat of violence from the Taliban in Afghanistan, where at least 28 prosecutors and their families have reportedly been killed.

When the Taliban seized back power in the country in August 2021, Sara*, who was 28 at the time, was just a few weeks shy of completing three years serving as a prosecutor in the Afghan attorney general’s office.

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Gordon Brown calls for Taliban to face crimes against humanity charges

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Ex-PM urges UK and allies to impose sanctions on Afghan regime over its ‘brutalisation’ of women and girls

Gordon Brown has called for the Taliban to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, as he urged the UK government and its allies to impose sanctions against the Afghan regime.

The former Labour prime minister appealed to the international criminal court to prosecute those responsible for the “systematic brutalisation of women and girls”.

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