Afghan refugees living in Britain have spoken of their dreams of a better future for their homeland, three years after the Taliban seized power.
More than 27,000 Afghans have been resettled in Britain since the Taliban's capture of Kabul on August 15, 2021. One of them, Maryam, 27, has settled into a new life as an urban planner and mentor for Afghan women after winning a scholarship.
But she hopes to return one day to an Afghanistan where “my voice is being heard”, as well as that of the women barred from studying under the Taliban.
“Hopefully one day, I and everyone else who had to flee their country will be able to return there,” she told The National. “I’m hoping for an inclusive Afghanistan for all genders, all ethnicities, all religions.”
Taliban mark third anniversary of fall of Kabul – in pictures
Some Afghans were taken out of Kabul by plane in the frantic days after it fell, with others granted visas later under a resettlement scheme.
Thousands have been quietly flown into British military bases over the past 10 months. Others have claimed asylum after arriving on small boats. Their integration in Britain has been made harder by temporary housing, visa bureaucracy and problems applying for jobs, not to mention race riots.
Two twin boys who were separated after an ISIS bombing at Kabul airport, Irfanullah and Obaidullah Jabarkhyl, are still waiting in Britain to be reunited with their mother.
The boys, now 13, were reunited in 2022 after a year-long battle with the Home Office but “life has been hard for the twins due to their family being left behind,” said their cousin, Qamar Jabarkhyl.
Mr Jabarkhyl, an engineer in London who has UK citizenship, said Britain “has given me so much but I cannot wait to take my skills and help rebuild my country”.
“Once there is a stable government in Afghanistan I will return and be part of its future,” he said.
Settling in
Aspiring fashion designer Saghar, 27, was met with kindness when she first arrived at a hotel in Liverpool, where strangers brought flowers and chocolates for refugees.
She spent months living in a hotel and learning English, which she found hard but says Britain now “feels like home” where she has freedom and a busy life with a fashion diploma and volunteer work. “I’m a social person, I love to be with people and be outside,” she said. “I’m positive about my future because it’s getting better every day.”
Some refugees worry they will have to “start university all over again”, or accept jobs they are overqualified for, said Genevieve Caston, the International Rescue Committee's director of resettlement, asylum and integration.
Maryam, a trained architect, said her months-long job hunt was “very difficult” because her qualifications were not treated as equivalent to British ones. However, a tutor helped her find work and she also volunteers with the International Rescue Committee and as a mentor for Afghan women who could not finish university under the Taliban.
Temporary housing
For some, finding work has been made harder by refugees spending months in temporary housing and moving from home to home, which also disrupted children's schooling.
“That created significant barriers for integration because people could not feel settled when they were in temporary accommodation,” Ms Caston said.
“Obviously, very short-term it was necessary but we do feel that should have been resolved much quicker. So there definitely was room for improvement.”
She said the same problem arises for people housed on military bases after more than 5,000 Afghans were secretly moved to the UK.
“They know that they're only in that military housing for a short period of time, so therefore they don't want to a look for a job if they know they're going to be moving to a geographic location.”
Family reunion
As thousands tried to flee Kabul in August 2021, the twins and their family were caught up in an ISIS suicide bombing at the airport, which killed 13 US troops and more than 170 Afghans.
Irfanullah and Obaidullah were split up from their parents and Irfanullah was placed on a flight to the UK to be reunited with his cousin, but a mistake during the confusion led to his brother Obaidullah being sent to France.
Three years on the twins are embracing life in London, having finished their first year at secondary school and sharing moments together from celebrating Ramadan to playing football with their new friends. Their cousin said there is hope that the family's three-year battle with the Home Office for a reunion is concluding.
“Life has been hard for the twins due to their family being left behind,” Mr Jabarkhyl said.
“To arrive here separately was tough, they had been through such a traumatic ordeal and then they had the added heartbreak of Obaidullah being sent to France on his own. When Irfanullah arrived in the UK on his own we thought his brother had died.
“The year-long fight to bring him to the UK was hard on both the boys. When they were reunited it was hard for them to settle in at first to a new life without their parents. But I enrolled them at school and now they are at secondary school and seem a lot happier.”
Two refugee schemes were set up for Afghans, one for staff who had helped the British military, such as translators and another for vulnerable people and human rights campaigners. More than 17,500 Afghans have arrived illegally on small boats in recent years, the second-most common nationality after Syrians.
The government has said it cannot consider asylum claims from all of “the very large numbers of people overseas who may wish to come here”.
The twin boys' parents and siblings applied for visas after they could not be evacuated and were forced to move to a rural area of Afghanistan after Jalalabad was overtaken by the Taliban.
The family managed to escape from Afghanistan last year and are now living in Pakistan but have been living in a one-room shelter for over a year.
“We have put in yet another application for their mum and siblings and managed to secure them visas,” Mr Jabarkhyl said.
“The boys are really excited for when their mum can join them. They have had to just stay in touch by WhatsApp and miss her,” he said.
“It has been so hard but hopefully it will soon be over.”
Race riots
Britain's summer race riots, in which refugees and immigration centres were prime targets of violence, left some Afghans shaken and recounting bad memories.
Maryam, who came to Britain from a temporary home in Kazakhstan, said she had previously felt “very safe” living in the UK but “for the first time, in the past couple of weeks I was afraid, I was scared”.
“I didn’t leave my room for a week because I was very scared for my safety. I’m glad that it’s all much better now. I hope we never experience such a thing again in the UK.”
Saghar, who was off work during the unrest, said people were “allowed to have their opinion” but that it was “important how you express that”.
“It was wild and it hurt so many people,” she said. But after three years in Britain she is optimistic that nine in every 10 people mean well,” she said.
I didn’t leave my room for a week because I was very scared for my safety
Maryam,
27, Afghan refugee
“I’m positive,” she said. “I’m not going to say ‘they don’t like refugees, they are not nice to us’. I know these people.”
The twin boys' family witnessed neighbours being threatened for wearing hijabs to people shouting abuse in the street.
“It’s not our fault we had to leave our country,” said Mr Jabarkhyl, who arrived in Britain in 2003 after his family fled the last Afghan war.
“Migrants do not come here for the fun of it. They are escaping from terrible things that have happened. It is very sad that we have been forced to leave our homeland and then come here and be treated badly due to our religion. It has been sad to see in a place we now call home.”
Hopes of returning
Maryam says it is heartbreaking that half of Afghan society is “paralysed” by the Taliban's strict laws applying to women and girls.
She plans to “build myself here” in Britain while Afghanistan remains unsafe, but says that “whatever long-term plans I have, it includes Afghanistan”.
“The girls we work with, they’re very passionate about education, about work and everything. They’re willing to give back to society and it’s really depressing to think that we don’t have that chance.”
Saghar too plans to stay in Britain for the time being, but hopes things improve in Afghanistan “not for me, for all the people who live in my country”.
The situation is hard for both men and women, but her female friends especially are lacking “basic rights” and are accosted by the Taliban even if they go to the park alone, she said.
“All of them are depressed about this part of their life. Something is missing from them,” she said. “It’s also an effect on me. Sometimes I say to myself ‘stop thinking about that’ because it’s so hard for me to accept that in my country it’s not like one or two women, it’s millions of women living like this.”
And while his cousins concentrate on their studies and continue to flourish at school, Mr Jabarkhyl still hopes for the day he can return to Afghanistan.
“Every day the situation in Afghanistan deteriorates. Afghans are losing hope. We do not know what our future holds, we are in limbo,” he said.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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Zayed Sustainability Prize
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The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Zayed Sustainability Prize
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
Zakat definitions
Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.
Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.
Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.
Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.
The five pillars of Islam
The five pillars of Islam
Where to donate in the UAE
The Emirates Charity Portal
You can donate to several registered charities through a “donation catalogue”. The use of the donation is quite specific, such as buying a fan for a poor family in Niger for Dh130.
The General Authority of Islamic Affairs & Endowments
The site has an e-donation service accepting debit card, credit card or e-Dirham, an electronic payment tool developed by the Ministry of Finance and First Abu Dhabi Bank.
Al Noor Special Needs Centre
You can donate online or order Smiles n’ Stuff products handcrafted by Al Noor students. The centre publishes a wish list of extras needed, starting at Dh500.
Beit Al Khair Society
Beit Al Khair Society has the motto “From – and to – the UAE,” with donations going towards the neediest in the country. Its website has a list of physical donation sites, but people can also contribute money by SMS, bank transfer and through the hotline 800-22554.
Dar Al Ber Society
Dar Al Ber Society, which has charity projects in 39 countries, accept cash payments, money transfers or SMS donations. Its donation hotline is 800-79.
Dubai Cares
Dubai Cares provides several options for individuals and companies to donate, including online, through banks, at retail outlets, via phone and by purchasing Dubai Cares branded merchandise. It is currently running a campaign called Bookings 2030, which allows people to help change the future of six underprivileged children and young people.
Emirates Airline Foundation
Those who travel on Emirates have undoubtedly seen the little donation envelopes in the seat pockets. But the foundation also accepts donations online and in the form of Skywards Miles. Donated miles are used to sponsor travel for doctors, surgeons, engineers and other professionals volunteering on humanitarian missions around the world.
Emirates Red Crescent
On the Emirates Red Crescent website you can choose between 35 different purposes for your donation, such as providing food for fasters, supporting debtors and contributing to a refugee women fund. It also has a list of bank accounts for each donation type.
Gulf for Good
Gulf for Good raises funds for partner charity projects through challenges, like climbing Kilimanjaro and cycling through Thailand. This year’s projects are in partnership with Street Child Nepal, Larchfield Kids, the Foundation for African Empowerment and SOS Children's Villages. Since 2001, the organisation has raised more than $3.5 million (Dh12.8m) in support of over 50 children’s charities.
Noor Dubai Foundation
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum launched the Noor Dubai Foundation a decade ago with the aim of eliminating all forms of preventable blindness globally. You can donate Dh50 to support mobile eye camps by texting the word “Noor” to 4565 (Etisalat) or 4849 (du).
Kamindu Mendis bio
Full name: Pasqual Handi Kamindu Dilanka Mendis
Born: September 30, 1998
Age: 20 years and 26 days
Nationality: Sri Lankan
Major teams Sri Lanka's Under 19 team
Batting style: Left-hander
Bowling style: Right-arm off-spin and slow left-arm orthodox (that's right!)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
WOMAN AND CHILD
Director: Saeed Roustaee
Starring: Parinaz Izadyar, Payman Maadi
Rating: 4/5
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Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates, Etihad and Swiss fly direct from the UAE to Zurich from Dh2,855 return, including taxes.
The chalet
Chalet N is currently open in winter only, between now and April 21. During the ski season, starting on December 11, a week’s rental costs from €210,000 (Dh898,431) per week for the whole property, which has 22 beds in total, across six suites, three double rooms and a children’s suite. The price includes all scheduled meals, a week’s ski pass, Wi-Fi, parking, transfers between Munich, Innsbruck or Zurich airports and one 50-minute massage per person. Private ski lessons cost from €360 (Dh1,541) per day. Halal food is available on request.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The five pillars of Islam
Jetour T1 specs
Engine: 2-litre turbocharged
Power: 254hp
Torque: 390Nm
Price: From Dh126,000
Available: Now
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'Worse than a prison sentence'
Marie Byrne, a counsellor who volunteers at the UAE government's mental health crisis helpline, said the ordeal the crew had been through would take time to overcome.
“It was worse than a prison sentence, where at least someone can deal with a set amount of time incarcerated," she said.
“They were living in perpetual mystery as to how their futures would pan out, and what that would be.
“Because of coronavirus, the world is very different now to the one they left, that will also have an impact.
“It will not fully register until they are on dry land. Some have not seen their young children grow up while others will have to rebuild relationships.
“It will be a challenge mentally, and to find other work to support their families as they have been out of circulation for so long. Hopefully they will get the care they need when they get home.”
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
The years Ramadan fell in May
The alternatives
• Founded in 2014, Telr is a payment aggregator and gateway with an office in Silicon Oasis. It’s e-commerce entry plan costs Dh349 monthly (plus VAT). QR codes direct customers to an online payment page and merchants can generate payments through messaging apps.
• Business Bay’s Pallapay claims 40,000-plus active merchants who can invoice customers and receive payment by card. Fees range from 1.99 per cent plus Dh1 per transaction depending on payment method and location, such as online or via UAE mobile.
• Tap started in May 2013 in Kuwait, allowing Middle East businesses to bill, accept, receive and make payments online “easier, faster and smoother” via goSell and goCollect. It supports more than 10,000 merchants. Monthly fees range from US$65-100, plus card charges of 2.75-3.75 per cent and Dh1.2 per sale.
• 2checkout’s “all-in-one payment gateway and merchant account” accepts payments in 200-plus markets for 2.4-3.9 per cent, plus a Dh1.2-Dh1.8 currency conversion charge. The US provider processes online shop and mobile transactions and has 17,000-plus active digital commerce users.
• PayPal is probably the best-known online goods payment method - usually used for eBay purchases - but can be used to receive funds, providing everyone’s signed up. Costs from 2.9 per cent plus Dh1.2 per transaction.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Anghami
Started: December 2011
Co-founders: Elie Habib, Eddy Maroun
Based: Beirut and Dubai
Sector: Entertainment
Size: 85 employees
Stage: Series C
Investors: MEVP, du, Mobily, MBC, Samena Capital
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Russia's Muslim Heartlands
Dominic Rubin, Oxford
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
