The European Union said Friday it will provide an additional €14 million to support the people of Afghanistan as the country struggles with drought, floods, a recent earthquake and the mass return of migrants.
The EU said €6 million will go to the Afghanistan Community Resilience Programme, run in partnership with the UN Development Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Organization for Migration and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. With the new funding, the EU’s total contribution to the programme rises to €21 million.
Another €8 million will be allocated to UN Women to provide essential services for women and girls, including protection and psychosocial counselling. That brings the EU’s total support in this area to €23 million.
Afghan refugees in Islamabad say Pakistani police have carried out violent raids on hotels housing families accepted under German resettlement programmes, arresting men, women and children and transferring some to detention camps.
Refugees told Afghanistan International that police stormed a hotel in the capital’s F-8 district on Sunday, detaining several families. One image shared from the scene showed a child who had fainted in fear.
They said police have raided multiple hotels in the same area over the past five days. Witnesses described armed officers breaking locks on doors and windows, beating residents and humiliating them. Families, including women and children, were taken into custody.
Those detained are typically moved to Haji Camp, a facility refugees described as lacking adequate food, healthcare and accommodation for women, children and the sick. Refugees also said police prevented them from collecting their belongings before arrest and that some families had already been deported to Afghanistan.
The raids targeted Afghans holding official admission letters for German relocation, many of them former employees of the German development agency GIZ, as well as women’s rights defenders, lawyers, judges and officials from the former Afghan government.
One refugee said families now live in constant fear of police raids. “The police treat refugees with extreme cruelty,” he said. Some families reportedly spend the day in parks or outside guesthouses to avoid arrest, though police have also conducted night-time raids.
German Government Criticised
Refugees criticised Berlin for failing to intervene. They said Afghans with German admission letters and former GIZ staff remain in detention, while the German government has not taken action.
Last month, police detained about 450 Afghans accepted for resettlement in Germany. German mediation prevented the deportation of 245, but more than 200 were expelled to Afghanistan.
The German government later said it was negotiating with Islamabad to return 211 deported Afghans to Pakistan.
Until recently, Afghan refugees were able to renew visas monthly or every few months. Pakistan stopped extensions about three months ago and has since intensified arrests.
German officials have not publicly commented on the escalating detentions and alleged mistreatment of Afghan refugees awaiting resettlement.
Former Afghan detainees have described harrowing abuse inside Taliban prisons, saying both male and female jailers were equally brutal in carrying out torture.
A woman and a man who were detained about two years ago in Kabul and Parwan told Afghanistan International they endured severe beatings and other forms of abuse in Taliban intelligence facilities.
Julia Parsi, a women’s and human rights activist, said she was arrested outside her home in Kabul on 27 September 2023 by Taliban members using unmarked vehicles. Speaking during a discussion on the social media platform X, she said she was targeted “for seeking justice for Afghan women.”
Parsi said she was blindfolded and beaten while being pressured to hand over her phone password. At the Taliban intelligence agency's prison, she said, seven female officers insulted and assaulted her before seizing control of her social media accounts. She spent 41 days in solitary confinement and later learned that her teenage son had also been detained solely because of his connection to her.
“The Taliban women were even more cruel than the men,” she said, adding that she was threatened with the arrest of her daughters unless she complied. She described further torture, including being doused with water, hung from the ceiling, suffocated with plastic bags and having her head forced into buckets of water.
Parsi was released after three months and later fled Afghanistan.
Another former prisoner, who gave his name as Sohrab Shomal, said he was jailed for a year after being accused of belonging to the National Resistance Front. He said Taliban interrogators pulled out his toenails and tortured him with electric shocks, beatings, suffocation and sleep deprivation.
“They had no evidence of my membership,” he said. “Anyone who refused to confess was tortured more.”
He said some detainees accused of “sodomy” or of planning to travel to Palestine were spared torture, while political prisoners were systematically abused.
International rights groups have repeatedly raised alarm about conditions in Taliban prisons. The World Organisation Against Torture said in a recent report that torture is systematic, with victims including political opponents, women activists, and ethnic and religious minorities. The group said methods include beatings, electric shocks, burning with hot irons, prolonged solitary confinement and psychological abuse.
An earlier Afghanistan International investigation documented at least 31 types of torture in Taliban-run intelligence prisons, ranging from hanging and confinement in cages to sexual violence and threats against detainees’ families.
Taliban detainees are held for rebellion, links to foreign media, contacts with Islamic State or resistance groups, or ties to the former security forces
Taliban officials said Saturday that a delegation met with Iranian counterparts at the Milak border crossing in Nimroz province to discuss border cooperation and transit.
According to the Taliban governor’s office in Nimroz, the two sides agreed to allow fuel tankers to cross in both directions and to keep the border crossing open for transit traffic. Topics including trade, transit, visas for Afghan travellers and measures to curb smuggling were also discussed.
The Iranian Embassy in Kabul earlier said Alireza Bikdeli, Tehran’s chargé d’affaires in Kabul, met with Noorullah Noori, the Taliban’s minister for borders, ethnicities and tribes, to discuss “border cooperation.” The Taliban ministry later said the talks also addressed “mutual trust.”
In a statement, the ministry said Bikdeli signalled Iran’s interest in expanding political ties with the Taliban. “The government of Iran respects all neighbouring countries, especially Afghanistan, and seeks to further strengthen its political, economic and friendly relations with Afghanistan,” he was quoted as saying.
Bikdeli also pledged “continued cooperation” with the Taliban, according to the statement.
Ahmad Massoud, leader of the National Resistance Front, said Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told him during talks in 2022 that elections “have no place in Islam.”
Massoud disclosed the exchange on Saturday in a discussion on the social media platform X. He said Muttaqi had urged him to end resistance against the Taliban and return to Kabul following the group’s takeover.
The meeting took place in Tehran shortly after the fall of Kabul, when armed resistance against the Taliban began. Sources at the time told Afghanistan International that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps had invited Muttaqi to Tehran and facilitated the talks with resistance leaders.
Massoud said he challenged Muttaqi’s rejection of elections, telling participants that if his view were correct, then Islamic countries such as Iran “must not have realised their actions were un-Islamic.”
In January 2022, Muttaqi also met in Iran with former jihadi commander Ismail Khan, Massoud and other Afghan figures. After the talks, he returned to Kabul and said resistance leaders could safely return home.
Massoud has consistently stressed the Afghan people’s right to elect their leaders. In a recent interview with Afghanistan International, he said he would be prepared to negotiate with the Taliban if the group accepted principles of elections, peace and justice.
Since seizing power, the Taliban has abolished Afghanistan’s constitution and dismantled democratic and electoral institutions. The group has ruled under its strict interpretation of Islamic law for the past four years.
Opponents of the Taliban and Western governments describe the movement’s rule as autocratic and illegitimate, with decision-making concentrated in the hands of senior leaders, particularly supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.
The Qatari government has announced the launch of an air corridor to deliver humanitarian assistance to victims of the recent earthquake in Afghanistan.
The Foreign Ministry said the initiative was created under the directive of Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
According to the ministry, Qatar’s armed forces, in coordination with the Foreign Ministry and the Internal Security Force (Lekhwiya), have begun transporting emergency relief supplies to Afghanistan.
On Thursday, the Minister of Interior and commander of Lekhwiya said that Qatar’s International Search and Rescue Group had started its mission to support the Afghan people.
A video released by the Foreign Ministry showed that the operation includes the deployment of field hospitals, emergency food and medical supplies, shelter materials provided by the Qatar Fund for Development, and international search and rescue teams from Lekhwiya equipped with full gear.