A COVENTRY woman has expressed her fears for her mum who is stranded in Afghanistan and struggling to get back to the UK.
Fereba Hafizi’s mum Layloma, a dual UK-Afghan national, returned to Afghanistan last month to attend a family funeral.
But now, since the Taliban took over the country, all domestic flights have been halted and she is struggling to get a flight out.
Layloma is 79 years old, disabled, medically unfit and low on the medicines she needs. She cannot travel without wheelchair aid.
Fereba has been providing regular updates about the situation via her Twitter feed.
On Tuesday she wrote: “Just been updated from my mum who is stuck in Kabul that the Taliban has completely surrounded the airport.
“They are now controlling all access and the gate to the airport. I do not know what this means to the fate of the dual Afghan nationals now trying to get back home. God help!”
Yesterday, in her last tweet before the Observer went to press, she also wrote about crowds of men gathering outside the hotels where all foreign nationals were waiting for flights.
She added people were trying to get inside the hotel to get inside travellers’ cases and hoping they would be granted visas.
Parliament – which was on its summer recess – was recalled yesterday to discuss the ongoing situation in Afghanistan.
America took the decision to remove its troops from Afghanistan and the UK followed.
The pair had spent 20 years in Afghanistan, training up soldiers over there.
It was anticipated it would take at least weeks for the Taliban to take control of the country but, with little resistance from the Afghan forces, it managed it within hours and days.
Hundreds of UK troops have also been sent to the country to get British nationals out.
