One year since the Airlift of Kabul, a brother and sister have shared the story of how they fled the Taliban and settled in Ipswich – and asked for the UK government to speed up the process of getting those still in danger to safety.
Abdul Quryshe was forced to leave his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter behind and still does not know when the family will be fully reunited.
In August 2021, Abdul, 36, was a married father of five, living in Kabul and working for the British Special Forces unit as an interpreter, which he had been doing since 2007.
His sister, Farida, now 23, was entering her sixth and final year as a medical student.
But after the withdrawal of American and NATO forces led to the collapse of the Afghanistan government, their lives were completely changed.
On August 15, Abdul was making plans to celebrate his birthday the next day with friends with a cake and perhaps dinner at a restaurant.
However, when he and a friend went to withdraw cash from a bank, they were shocked to find a queue of some 200 people.
“The manager said, I don’t have any money, the government told us we’re not to pay anyone,” said Abdul.
“Suddenly, I saw a police car stop. The police got out, and pulled off their uniforms and dropped all their weapons and military kits on the road.” They were fearful that this could mark them out as targets to the Taliban.
“Someone said, the president has escaped the country – everybody’s gone.”
Abdul knew that his connection with the British would make him a target, as he had been when he lived and worked with the British and Afghan Special Forces in the Helmand Province to the west of Kabul.
He said: “When they heard that I was working with the British Army, they [Taliban] threw a grenade in our house. It hit my dog, but we were lucky that the house was big enough that nobody else was hurt.
“They had also kidnapped my brother from the Kandahar Province, and took him to Pakistan. He was there six months.
“Day and night, they were pulling his nails, and torturing and electrocuting him.” Abdul’s brother has now made it safely to Austria.
The day had also started normally for Farida.
“On August 16, I had a surgery exam at university,” said Farida. “But my sister called me, saying: come back home, the Taliban came and attacked Kabul.”
Although she was only a baby when the Taliban were in power before 2001, she remembers being afraid of their “long hair and dirty faces".
“I had one conversation with a leader of the Taliban at my university,” she said. “They came and said, why are you girls not covering your hair and faces? University and college are not for girls. You should be at home.
“We said no, education is a necessity for us.”
However, the Taliban said that the girls should be at home with their mothers, and threatened to shoot them if they continued to speak back to them.
The university remained closed until November. When it reopened, it was clear that many of her former male classmates had started working for the Taliban, and forbade girls from attending.
Farida said: "After November, we moved to Islamabad [Pakistan’s capital] to wait for our visa. Then on January 9, we moved to the UK."
Farida now lives with one of her brothers and his family.
Abdul, however, knew that he needed to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible.
He saw thousands of people trying to leave Kabul, young and old. Some people had died in the airport from exhaustion and dehydration, and others had been shot dead.
Abdul had the idea of calling someone he knew in Woodbridge from the British Armed Forces and asked for his help, and at midnight on August 19, received a call instructing him to go to the airport.
“For three days, we were left at the gate. The last day was really hard, everybody was exhausted and dehydrated. I had one of the kids on my shoulders, and another in my arms.”
Army vehicles had made a barrier at the gate, and at noon on the third day, Abdul’s family were told to approach. A soldier helped pull them up, including Abdul’s pregnant wife, onto the roof of the vehicle, where they waited until they could be airlifted to safety.
However, he had to make the impossible decision to leave his two-and-a-half-year-old little girl behind.
“She was exhausted, and she already had asthma. There was no way she could move forward,” said Abdul.
“I thought all of us should go back, but my brother said no, you made it here with everybody through this hard situation. You must stay here, and I will take her to hospital. Once you have made it, you can bring her to you.”
Abdul said he believes that legally, bringing his daughter to the UK will be straightforward, but how to physically transport a bring a child so young will be another matter.
While he continues to fight for his daughter, both Abdul and Farida say they are relieved to have made it to the UK.
“I feel I am safe, and I have a good future ahead of me,” said Farida, who is hoping to resume her medical studies in September, including studying the IELTS English language test.
“We’ve settled here, and we’ve been looked after. The kids are going to school to get an education, and have a good future here,” said Abdul, who now works in Ipswich.
“But we need the UK government to speed up the process, especially for those who worked with the British soldiers at the time when the government needed them. Now is the time to make things happen for them.”
He said that he knows of six of his former colleagues whose homes were raided by the Taliban while they were waiting for their applications for resettlement in the UK to be processed. They are now missing.
He said the war in Ukraine has also slowed down the process.
“They need to treat us the same. Ukrainians deserve help as well, but please do not forget about us.”
Over the last 12 months Suffolk Refugee Support has provided intensive support to resettled Afghans arriving across Suffolk, including Abdul and Fariba, assisting many into work and others to access English classes and community activities.
A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “Whilst we don’t comment on individual cases, we continue to relocate eligible Afghans who worked with the UK Armed Forces under the ARAP scheme and are working with partners in the region to bring out as many people as we can on a regular basis. To date over 10,300 people have been relocated to the UK.
“All applications are assessed on a case-by-case basis, against all categories of eligibility. Processing timelines vary due to the complexity and personal circumstances of each applicant, and we regret any delays as we work through complex cases.”
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