KABUL: As their flight to Islamabad was finally about to take off, Somaya took her husband Ali’s hand, lay her head back and closed her eyes. Tension had been building in her for weeks. Now it was happening: They were leaving Afghanistan, their homeland.
The couple had been trying to go ever since the Taliban took over in mid-August, for multiple reasons. Ali is journalist and Somaya a civil engineer who has worked on United Nations development programs. They worry how the Taliban will treat anyone with those jobs. Both are members of the mainly Shiite Hazara minority, which fears the Sunni militants.
Most important of all: Somaya is five months pregnant with their daughter, whom they’ve already named Negar.
“I will not allow my daughter to step in Afghanistan if the Taliban are in charge,” Somaya told The Associated Press on the flight with them. Like others leaving or trying to leave, the couple asked that their full names not be used for their protection. They don't know if they'll ever return.
Ask almost anyone in the Afghan capital what they want now that the Taliban are in power, and the answer is the same: They want to leave. It’s the same at every level of society, in the local market, in a barbershop, at Kabul University, at a camp of displaced people. At a restaurant once popular with businessmen and upper-class teens, the waiter lists the countries to which he has applied for visas.
Some say their lives are in danger because of links with the ousted government or with Western organizations. Others say their way of life cannot endure under the hard-line Taliban, notorious for their restrictions on women, on civil liberties and their harsh interpretation of Islamic law. Some are not as concerned with the Taliban themselves but fear that under them, an already collapsing economy will utterly crash.
Tens of thousands of people were evacuated by the United States and its allies in the frantic days between the Aug. 15 Taliban takeover and the official end of the evacuation on Aug. 30. After that wave, the numbers slowed, leaving many who want to leave but are struggling to find a way out. Some don’t have the money for travel, others don’t have passports, and the Afghan passport offices reopened only recently.
The exodus is emptying Afghanistan of many of its young people who had hoped to help build their homeland.
“I was raised with one dream, that I study hard and be someone, and I’d come back to this country and help,” said Popal, a 27-year-old engineer.
“With this sudden collapse, every dream is shattered. … We lose everything living here.”
When Popal was 5 years old, his father sent him to Britain with relatives to get an education. Growing up, Popal worked low-skill jobs, sending money back to his family, while studying engineering. He eventually gained British citizenship and worked in the nuclear sector.
A few weeks before the Taliban takeover, Popal returned to Afghanistan in hopes of getting his family out. His father once worked at a military base in Logar Province, where his mother was a teacher. His sisters have been studying medicine in Kabul.
The recent weeks have been tumultuous. His family’s home in Logar was destroyed by the Taliban, and they moved to Kabul. They believe it was because they refused to give information to relatives who are linked to the Taliban. One of his sisters went missing as she commuted between Kabul and Logar, and has not been heard from in weeks. The family fears it could be connected to warnings they received from relatives to stop the daughters from studies, Popal told the AP.
Popal has been in contact for weeks with British officials trying to arrange evacuations. But he said they told him he could not bring his parents and siblings. In early October, Popal managed to get out to Iran. Complaining that he's had no help from the British Foreign Office, he is making his way back to Britain, where he will try to find a way to bring out his family.
The British Foreign Office said in a statement that it is working to ensure British nationals in Afghanistan are able to leave.
A former adviser to a senior Cabinet minister in Afghanistan’s ousted government said he was searching for a way out. The decision came after years of sticking it out through mounting violence. He survived a 2016 suicide bombing that hit a protest march in Kabul and killed more than 90 people. Friends of his were killed in an attack later that year on the American University of Afghanistan, killing at least 13.
In the past, he had opportunities and offers to go to the United States or Europe. “I didn’t take them because I wanted to stay and I wanted to work and I wanted to make a difference,” he said, speaking on condition he not be named for his protection.
Now he is in hiding, waiting for his opportunity to escape.
The American University of Afghanistan, a private university in Kabul, is arranging flights out for many of its students.
One student, a 27-year-old, recounted one attempt by the school to get evacuees to Kabul airport on Aug. 29, the second-to-last day when U.S. troops were there. In the chaos, buses carrying the students drove for hours around the capital, trying to find a route to the airport, he said. They couldn’t make it.
The student has been waiting for the past month for a spot on another flight arranged by the university for himself, his wife and two young children. He hopes that once out, he can apply for visas to the United States. His family has packed up everything in their house, covering their furniture with sheets to protect it from the dust. His parents are trying to get to the United Arab Emirates.
In Pakistan, at the Islamabad airport, a group of American University students, freshly arrived from Kabul, waited to cross through immigration. They will go on to sister schools in Central Asia.
But their families could not come with them, so they face the uncertain future alone for the moment.
Without her family for the first time ever, Meena, a 21-year-old political science student, cringed with humiliation as an airport official shouted rudely at the students.
“I don’t know my future. I had a lot of dreams, but now I don’t know,” she said, starting to cry.
She showed the school pen she brought with her because it has the flag of her country on it, the one now replaced in Afghanistan by the Taliban flag.
“We just burned our dreams ... we are just broken people.”
Many Afghans pack their bags, hoping for the chance to leave
Many Afghans pack their bags, hoping for the chance to leave
- Some are not as concerned with the Taliban themselves but fear that under them, an already collapsing economy will utterly crash
- The British Foreign Office said in a statement that it is working to ensure British nationals in Afghanistan are able to leave
Trial opens into UK stabbing spree that sparked riots over misinformation attacker was Muslim
- Authorities blame far-right agitators for violence, including by sharing misinformation alleged attacker was Muslim asylum seeker
- Unrest, which lasted several days, saw far-right rioters attack police, shops, hotels housing asylum seekers and mosques
LONDON: The trial of a teenager accused of killing three young girls in a stabbing spree last year that sparked the UK’s most violent riots in a decade is set to begin Monday.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, is due to stand trial at Liverpool Crown Court, accused of murdering three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last year in Southport, northwest England.
Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, were killed in the attack in the seaside resort near Liverpool on July 29, 2024.
Ten others were injured, including eight children, in one of the country’s worst mass stabbings in years.
Rudakubana faces a total of 16 charges, including three counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder and one count of possessing a blade days after the attack.
The trial is expected to last four weeks after pleas of not guilty were entered on his behalf.
The stabbings sent shock waves across the UK, triggering unrest and riots in more than a dozen English and Northern Irish towns and cities, including in Southport and Liverpool.
Authorities blamed far-right agitators for fueling violence, including by sharing misinformation claiming the alleged attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker.
The unrest, which lasted several days, saw far-right rioters attack police, shops, hotels housing asylum seekers and mosques, with hundreds of participants subsequently arrested and charged.
Rudakubana was born in Wales to parents of Rwandan origin and lived in Banks, a village northeast of Southport.
Despite being 17 years old at the time, restrictions on reporting Rudakubana’s name were lifted in August due to concerns over the spread of misinformation.
“Continuing to prevent the full reporting has the disadvantage of allowing others to spread misinformation, in a vacuum,” judge Andrew Menary said as he lifted the restrictions.
Taylor Swift, then in the middle of her Eras tour, wrote on Instagram that she “was completely in shock” the day after the attack on the dance class at the start of the school holidays.
The pop star reportedly met two of the survivors of the attack during her August shows in London.
The UK’s head of state King Charles III also traveled to Southport in August to meet with survivors, inspecting a sea of floral tributes laid outside the city’s town hall.
And Catherine, Princess of Wales, and Prince William visited Southport in October “to show support to the local community,” Kensington Palace said. It was their first joint public engagement since Kate ended a course of chemotherapy for cancer.
In October, the suspect was charged with two additional offenses in relation to evidence obtained “during searches of Axel Rudakubana’s home address” following the attack, the Crown Prosecution Services (CPS), which brings public prosecutions, said.
The charges were for the “production of a biological toxin, namely ricin,” and “possessing information ... likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.”
The terrorism offense related to suspicion of possessing an Al-Qaeda training manual, although the attack was not treated as a terrorist incident.
Following speculation on social media related to policing decisions in the case, Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said she realized the added charges could trigger fresh rumors.
“We would strongly advise caution against anyone speculating as to motivation in this case,” Kennedy was quoted as saying.
She urged people to be patient and “don’t believe everything you read on social media.”
Rudakubana has appeared in several hearings since the attack, often wearing a grey sweatshirt, and refusing to speak in all of them.
In the last hearing in December, he appeared via videolink at Liverpool Crown Court from high-security Belmarsh prison, in southeast London.
The Attorney General and Merseyside police have warned the press and public against publishing any material that risks prejudicing the trial.
Russia says captured two more villages in east Ukraine
MOSCOW: Russian forces have captured two more villages in east Ukraine, including one just a few kilometers from Pokrovsk, a key supply hub for Kyiv’s forces, the defense ministry said Monday.
Army units “liberated” Shevchenko and Novoyegorivka in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk respectively, it said. Shevchenko is around three kilometers (two miles) from Pokrovsk.
Indian police volunteer gets life sentence for rape, murder of Kolkata junior doctor
- Sanjay Roy was convicted by judge Anirban Das on Saturday who said circumstantial evidence had proved the charges against him
- The sentence was announced in a packed courtroom as the judge allowed the public to witness proceedings on Monday
KOLKATA: An Indian court awarded the life sentence on Monday to a police volunteer convicted of the rape and murder of a junior doctor at the hospital where she worked in the eastern city of Kolkata.
The woman’s body was found in a classroom at the state-run R G Kar Medical College and Hospital on Aug. 9. Other doctors stayed off work for weeks to demand justice for her and better security at public hospitals, as the crime sparked national outrage over a lack of safety for women.
Sanjay Roy, the police volunteer, was convicted by judge Anirban Das on Saturday who said circumstantial evidence had proved the charges against Roy.
Roy said he was innocent and that he had been framed, and sought clemency.
The federal police, who investigated the case, said the crime belonged to the “rarest-of-rare” category and Roy, therefore, deserved the death penalty.
Judge Das said it was not a “rarest-of-rare” crime, adding that Roy could go in appeal to a higher court.
The sentence was announced in a packed courtroom as the judge allowed the public to witness proceedings on Monday. The speedy trial in the court was not open to the public.
The parents of the junior doctor were among those in court on Monday. Security was stepped up with dozens of police personnel deployed at the court complex.
Myanmar military, minority armed group agree ceasefire, China says
- The two sides held talks in China’s southwestern city of Kunming
- Analysts say China is worried about the advance of anti-junta forces
BEIJING: The Myanmar military and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) signed a formal agreement for a ceasefire that began on Saturday, China’s foreign ministry said, halting fighting near the border of both countries.
The two sides held talks in China’s southwestern city of Kunming where they thanked Beijing for its efforts to promote peace, ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said during a regular news briefing on Monday.
“Cooling down the situation in the north of Myanmar is in the common interest of all parties in Myanmar and all countries in the region, and contributes to the security, stability and development of the border areas between China and Myanmar,” she said.
China will continue to actively promote peace and dialogue and provide support and assistance to the peace process in northern Myanmar, Mao said.
The MNDAA is one of several ethnic minority armed groups fighting to repel the military from what they consider their territories.
It is part of the so-called Three Brotherhood Alliance, with the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army, that launched an offensive against the military junta in late October 2023 seizing swathes of territory near the border with China.
The MNDAA, made up of ethnic Chinese, said last July it had taken control of a major military base near the Chinese border.
Analysts say China is worried about the advance of anti-junta forces which have pushed the military out of vital borderlands and started making inroads toward the central city of Mandalay.
The military seized power from Myanmar’s civilian government in February 2021, plunging the country into crisis.
China fears chaos along its more than 2,000 kilometer long border with Myanmar would jeopardize investment and trade.
Beijing previously brokered a ceasefire deal in the northern borderlands in January 2024, but the deal broke down a few months later.
France to keep fighting for release of French-Israeli hostages, says foreign minister
PARIS: France will keep fighting to obtain the release of the two French-Israeli nationals held by Hamas, foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot told BFM TV on Monday.
“We will continue to fight until the last hour for their release,” Barrot told BFM TV, adding France had “no news on their health status nor on the terms of their detention.”
Hamas released three Israeli hostages and Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners on Sunday, on the first day of a ceasefire suspending a 15-month-old war that has devastated the Gaza Strip and inflamed the Middle East.
French-Israeli nationals Ofer Kalderon and Ohad Yahalomi are expected to be on the list of 33 hostages to be released in the first phase of the draft Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.
