Afghans, anguished, denounce atrocities committed by Taliban from abroad

Two months ago, Usman was living through his worst hours since he received asylum in France. His father had been kidnapped for three days by the Taliban, an example of the abuses committed by Islamists since they regained power.

“They knocked on the door of our house in the middle of the night and ordered him to follow them. They locked him up in a small dark room, where they beat him, “said this former high-ranking official, who asked to testify under a pseudonym.

Usman, evacuated by France with his wife and children after the fall of Kabul, also requests that the name of his province not be provided, so as not to put his father and other relatives in even greater danger.

The kidnappers were Taliban, he claims. “They told my father that he was a ‘kafir’ (infidel in Arabic), that I had helped the Americans, so they were going to seize our lands to give to their mujahideen.”

For three days, the men of the Usman family, accompanied by dignitaries from their population, advocated for the disappeared in front of the new authorities, he says. The maneuver paid off. The man of legal age was released at night on the outskirts of the town.

“They wanted to kill him. It was a miracle”Usman sighs, eaten away by the “guilt” of having abandoned his loved ones.

Since the power of the Taliban has not yet been structured following a single authority, “They told us that one of their groups had been persuaded to release my father. But that other groups could do it (kidnap him) again ”, explains Omar (also a pseudonym), Usman’s brother, who has lived in France since 2020.

“Since then, every morning I wake up with the anguish that this story is repeating itself,” he adds.

“Rumors”

Mirwais Afghan, director of the UK-based site Khabarial.com (reporter.com in Pashto), confirms the information: “The father was released thanks to tribal chiefs”.

In Afghanistan, these kidnappings, a veritable scourge under the old regime, decreased with the Taliban, but the number of enforced disappearances increased, often fatal, highlights.

They are also accused of perpetrating fatal, sometimes erroneous, reckoning. since some take advantage of the change of regime to settle non-political disputes with blood.

The UN on Tuesday accused the Islamists of having executed at least 72 former members of the Afghan forces and others linked to the previous government since August. Words that the Taliban called “unfounded rumors.”

On Khabarial.com, a hostile “propaganda” site according to the Taliban, articles about killings by Islamists are published almost daily.

Between December 10 and 15 alone, Khabarial.com reported the deaths of four former security forces, a woman and two children in six episodes that occurred in four different provinces.

“The true figures are higher than those of the UN,” says Mirwais Afghan, which for its part has accounted for more than 550 deaths in the last four months, only in 8 of the 34 Afghan provinces, thanks to a network of correspondents that it has in the country. Data that this former BBC journalist always claims to recount, but that AFP could not verify.

“Last month they beheaded a relative, a former policeman. His head has not yet been found, ”he continues. “Even I have not published this story. So who’s going to find out? He asks.

“Cleaning”

Majeed Qarar, a former Afghan diplomat currently living in Canada, has also written an impressive number of ghoulish tweets. “Only in my Twitter account can be found 200 dead”, he stressed to AFP.

Information that it claims to systematically verify with relatives of the victims and officials of the previous regime who are still in Afghanistan.

In late November, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) attributed 100 killings or enforced disappearances to the Taliban in just four provinces.

The new masters, in addition to crimes related to their “vendetta” against their recent enemies, “decided to clean up all those they see as an obstacle in the future,” “especially Afghans, literate and anti-Muslim”, denounces Qarar.

Despite the fact that many foreign media outlets evacuated their local staff and the Afghan press does not cover these crimes, fearing reprisals, “Dozens of people die every day”Said Samira Hamidi of Amnesty International (AI).

“By the way, there is no more fighting (between government forces and Taliban), but the population does not know calm. Violence is everywhere”, He argues. “And people are so scared that they shut up. No one can protect her, ”he laments. (I)