'I fled the Taliban with my siblings - now my parents are trapped in Kabul'

15 August 2023 , 14:12

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UK refugees who fled the Taliban say their families are still stuck in Afghanistan - including parents separated from children (Image: U.S. Air Forces Europe-Africa vi)

"I have one message for the UK Government - just bring my mum and dad home."

These are the heartbreaking words of a teenage girl who fled Taliban rule as her parents remain trapped in Afghanistan. Refugee Zulikha, 19, came to the UK under the Afghan Resettlement Scheme and has since become a mother to her two young siblings, aged 17 and nine, after her parents were unable to catch the last plane to leave Kabul.

Her gut-wrenching account comes two years after Kabul fell to the Taliban on August 15, 2021, with still no word on whether the Home Office will grant visas to her parents. Zulikha is one of hundreds of relatives of people who work for the UK embassy or organisations like the UN moved to the UK when the Taliban reclaimed power.

The Refugee Council says there is still no official scheme for reuniting resettled Afghan families who have been wrenched apart. Speaking on the two-year anniversary, Zulikha, whose full name cannot be given, told how she was still unable to answer questions from her younger brother and sister as they remain separated from her parents who have since gone into hiding.

Thousands of families displaced in the Taliban takeover don't know if they'll ever get to see their families again (LPhot Ben Shread/BRITISH MINISTRY OF DEFENCE/HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

She said: “The problem is my sister… when she comes back from the school, she says, 'all the children have a mum and dad coming'. But where is my mum? Where is she, when is she coming? I know many other Afghan families who were separated from close family. The problem is, no one feels our pain. Everyone thinks it’s a joke to need your family. No, everyone needs their family.”

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Had Zulikha and her sister stayed in Afghanistan, both would have faced persecution at the rigid hands of the Taliban, who since regaining power have banned women from education beyond puberty. Women cannot see a male doctor - a prospect to become impossible with women shut out of higher education - or go out in public without a mahram (male chaperone).

“The Taliban situation is terrible, they can’t go outside, they can’t go anywhere, just in the house,” added Zulikha. “So that's too hard for everyone.” After reaching the UK by plane in August 2021, she was put into a hotel and has since moved into a home in West Yorkshire.

Zulikha's parents got stuck in the throngs of people who rushed to escape Afghanistan in August 2021 (AFP via Getty Images)

The Mirror also spoke to Sooma, who fled her home in Jalalabad on August 17th with her mum and sister. Sooma's 14-year-old adopted brother was trapped in the country after missing the plane, with the Home Office rejecting an application for a visa for him on the grounds of being too unwell to travel to the UK.

“He's not unwell, he just misses his mum,” said Sooma, 27. Her older sister's six-month-old baby - now aged two - was also left behind and is now with her parents-in-law. She added: “It feels like there is nothing we can do. We love and miss my brother so much and my mum cries everyday. I really wish I could make her smile.”

Golmina, another refugee who has been housed at a West Yorkshire hotel after fleeing her home in Panjshir Province, said her family left behind were "all unsafe and under threat". Her widowed sister, Nooragh, had been left with her eight children.

She said: "The daughters are all educated, such as in law and medicine, but they can't work and the family has no money. My husband's father is also in very great danger as my husband was formerly very high up in government. He has to continually move from place to place with my sister and her son to evade the Taliban."

The Refugee Council says they were told by Tory Alec Shelbrooke, who is local MP for one of the hotels where some of the women have been staying, that those evacuated under the Afghan Resettlement Scheme without their immediate family members "will be informed in due course about options for reuniting with them".

The Mirror has approached the Home Office for comment.

Susie Beever