Afghanistan: A shopkeeper fears splitting his family and leaving his son and daughter under Taliban rule.
The shopkeeper was stuck in Afghan during the Taliban take over, and he is afraid of putting his family under the new Taliban regime. After all his children are just growing up.
Shot before the Taliban-Afghan fight, Abdullah (not his real name) paid a visit to his family in Kabul. He was still there when the Taliban fight started.
Why Did The Shopkeeper Fair The Taliban Rule?
20 years ago, Abdullah (the shopkeeper) was reported to fled Afghanistan, when the Taliban tried to recruit him. While he also wants to secure his eldest son from the recruit.
“They wanted to recruit me, they wanted to train me, they wanted to keep me, but as soon as I had my chance, I left the country,” he said.
“If they don’t take their revenge they will still ask to come and join or [say] ‘give us your son – join the forces now, we are the government’.
“There’s nobody left. They need people, right now.”
Now that flights had resumed, he said, it’s easy to take his wife and youngest children to the UK, but he fears for the other two. Due to the Taliban rule.
“Shall I run from them like a coward… or shall I stay with them and whatever happens – face that?
“The whole family would be broken into two,” he said.
Abdullah said he was shocked by the Taliban’s rapid takeover of Kabul.
“Within hours things changed,” he said. “All the government uniform disappeared, all the government cars disappeared”.
He has rarely left the house since. He wants to make his family “safe” and said support from friends in Coventry had given him hope and made him “feel alive again”.
“For my two kids, I want to get some kind of clearance that I can bring them to the UK. I have my house and I have my business and I can support them and I want to take them with me. I don’t want to leave them here,” he said.
As a response, the Home Office commented that it’s goal is to resettle up to 200,000 people, under the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme, along with 5,000 in its first year.
In addition to that, a spokeswoman said, this added up to the resettlement of thousands of Afghans who worked with the UK government.