tag

An elderly British couple released after almost eight months in detention in Afghanistan are expected to fly back to the UK on Saturday. Taliban authorities arrested Peter Reynolds, 80, and his wife Barbie, 76, in February as they were returning to their home in Bamiyan province, central Afghanistan.Following concerns for their health, the pair were freed on Friday and flown to the Qatari capital Doha. They are expected to leave for London on a commercial flight on Saturday after completing medical checks.The Reynoldes married in Kabul in 1970 and have spent almost two decades living in Afghanistan, running educational programmes for women and children. They also became Afghan citizens. When the Taliban returned to power in 2021, they remained in Afghanistan against the advice of the British embassy.The Taliban have not explained why the pair were detained, and Qatar brokered the negotiations for their release. Speaking on the tarmac at Kabul airport on Friday, Barbie Reynolds said the couple had been treated well and were "looking forward to seeing our children.""We are looking forward to returning to Afghanistan if we can. We are Afghan citizens," she added.They were embraced by family members on arriving in Doha, with their daughter Sarah Entwistle telling AFPTV she was "overwhelmed with gratitude and relief."The couple were first held in a maximum security facility, "then in underground cells, without daylight, before being transferred" to the intelligence services in Kabul, UN experts have said.In July, independent UN human rights experts called on the Taliban government to free them, warning that they risked "irreparable harm or even death" as their health deteriorated.The couple's family had made repeated pleas for their release, citing their failing health.Taliban foreign ministry spokesperson Abdul Qahar Balkhi said on Friday that the couple "had violated the laws of Afghanistan" and were released from custody "following the judicial process."The Reynolds' four children hailed their parents' release but said they face a "long" recovery.Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the "long-awaited news will come as a huge relief" to the family.The British government advises citizens against traveling to Afghanistan, warning that its ability to offer consular assistance is "extremely limited."Russia is the only country to have officially recognised the Taliban government, which has imposed a strict version of Islamic law and been accused of sweeping human rights violations.Dozens of foreign nationals have been arrested since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021 following the NATO pullout.

One of Afghanistan's worst earthquakes killed more than 800 people and injured at least 2,800, authorities said Monday, as rescuers struggled to reach remote areas due to rough mountainous terrain and inclement weather.The disaster will further stretch the resources of the war-torn nation's Taliban administration, already grappling with crises ranging from a sharp drop in foreign aid to deportations of hundreds of thousands of Afghans by neighbouring countries.Sharafat Zaman, spokesperson for the health ministry in Kabul, called for international aid to tackle the devastation wrought by the quake of magnitude 6 that struck around midnight local time, at a depth of 10km (6 miles)."We need it because here lots of people lost their lives and houses," he told Reuters.The quake killed 812 people in the eastern provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar, administration spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said.Ziaul Haq Mohammadi, a student at Al-Falah University in the eastern city of Jalalabad, was studying in his room at home when the quake struck. He said he tried to stand up but was knocked over by the power of the tremor."We spent the whole night in fear and anxiety because at any moment another earthquake could happen," Mohammadi said.Rescuers were battling to reach remote mountainous areas cut off from mobile networks along the Pakistani border, where mudbrick homes dotting the slopes collapsed in the quake."The area of the earthquake was affected by heavy rain in the last 24-48 hours as well, so the risk of landslides and rock slides is also quite significant — that is why many of the roads are impassable," Kate Carey, an officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), told Reuters.Rescue teams and authorities are trying to dispose of animal carcasses quickly so as to minimise the risk of contamination to water resources, Carey said.Casualties could rise as rescue teams access more isolated locations, authorities said."All our ... teams have been mobilised to accelerate assistance, so that comprehensive and full support can be provided," said health ministry spokesperson Abdul Maten Qanee, citing efforts in areas from security to food and health.Reuters Television images showed helicopters ferrying out the affected, while residents helped security forces and medics carry the wounded to ambulances in an area with a long history of earthquakes and floods.Military rescue teams fanned out across the region, the defence ministry said, with 40 flights carrying away 420 wounded and dead.The quake razed three villages in Kunar, with substantial damage in many others, authorities said. At least 610 people were killed in Kunar with 12 dead in Nangarhar, they added.Some villagers sat weeping amid the piled ruins of their homes. Others began laboriously clearing the debris by hand, or carried out the injured on makeshift stretchers."This is Mazar Dara in Nurgal district. The entire village has been destroyed,” one victim told reporters. "Children and elders are trapped under the rubble. We need urgent help.”Another survivor said: "We need ambulances, we need doctors, we need everything to rescue the injured and recover the dead.”It was Afghanistan's third major deadly quake since the Taliban took over in 2021 as foreign forces withdrew, triggering a cut to the international funding that formed the bulk of government finances.Diplomats and aid officials say crises elsewhere in the world, along with donor frustration over the Taliban's policies towards women, including curbs on those who are aid workers, have spurred the cuts in funding.Even humanitarian aid, aimed at bypassing political institutions to serve urgent needs, has shrunk to $767 million this year, down from $3.8bn in 2022.Humanitarian agencies say they are fighting a forgotten crisis in Afghanistan, where the United Nations estimates more than half the population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid."So far, no foreign governments have reached out to provide support for rescue or relief work," a spokesperson of Afghanistan's foreign office said on Monday.Later, a spokesperson for China's foreign ministry said it was ready to provide disaster relief assistance "according to Afghanistan's needs and within its capacity".Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar of India said it had delivered 1,000 family tents to Kabul and was moving 15 tonnes of food material to Kunar, with more relief material to be sent from India starting on Tuesday.The US State Department's Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs posted its condolences on X yesternday for the loss of life in the earthquake, but did not immediately respond when asked if the United States would provide any assistance.Afghanistan has been badly affected since US President Donald Trump's administration in January began slashing funding to its humanitarian arm, USAID, and aid programmes worldwide as part of a broader plan to end what it deems wasteful spending.UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said its mission in Afghanistan was preparing to help those in areas devastated by the quake. Pope Leo also sent condolences for the dead.Afghanistan is prone to deadly earthquakes, particularly in the Hindu Kush mountain range, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.A 6.1-magnitude earthquake that killed 1,000 people in the eastern region in 2022 was the first major natural disaster faced by the Taliban government.