Afghan women in fear as Taliban go door to door in search of those who worked for ‘enemies’
Many of the women of Afghanistan are frightened right now. And those who worked for the foreigners who’ve pulled out of the country, are even more so.
They are some of the top Taliban targets and too many of them are telling us how the Taliban are going from door to door, trying to find those who once worked for the “enemies”.
Officially, there’s an amnesty. Unofficially, there are scores being settled and intimidation is rife.
There are many more people out in the market than we’ve seen in the previous few days
“Why did I work for the US?” one 24-year-old woman asks us.
“That [when we are in] such a situation they are not responding us (sic)… not hearing us? It’s a waste of my work experience, all those years. It’s a waste of effort, it’s a waste of struggle, it’s a waste of everything right now. I even carry some kind of hate in my heart for them.”
She and her sister have travelled with their uncle to where we are staying. They were too scared to talk to us openly.
They saw us filming in a market in the capital and the younger sister (who we will call “Tabasum” for her safety), tells us she watched us for two hours before summoning up the courage to pull Sky producer Chris Cunningham to one side.
“Please, I want you to interview me,” she told him. “I can’t talk here because our lives are in danger.”
Speaking to women at the market
It has taken tremendous bravery to speak up at all. We are just a few metres away from an armed Taliban checkpoint. The fighters who are patrolling through the market, with weapons slung over their shoulders, tell us how we are seeing a different, better side of Kabul.
“A few weeks ago you would not have been able to come here because of the security,” the Talib tells us. There appears to be no irony in his voice.
There are many more people out in the market than we’ve seen in the previous few days. And there is a marked increase in the number of women in public.
Initially, the Taliban instructed women to stay indoors “for security reasons”. But while we are here there are many thronging the stalls.
Talibs at the market checkpoint
We notice they are all wearing long flowing dresses or coats and headscarves or hijabs – a number are in the all-enveloping burka. Many appear to have a male companion (mahram) shepherding the groups of females around.
We ask the Taliban commander manning the checkpoint what he does to enforce any dress code. He replies that so long as the women adhere to Sharia law, there’s no issue.
Another Talib interrupts. “It’s an Islamic society,” he says. “And there is no need to tell them to wear hijab, we haven’t had to ask them…everyone is obeying that now.”
When you’re the ones holding the guns, perhaps you don’t need to persuade too hard.
Initially, the Taliban instructed women to stay indoors ‘for security reasons’
In the room where we are secretly meeting the young women, they spread out their paperwork which shows extensive links with USAID and other foreign aid groups like CARE, which has a base in Britain.
There are 25 members of their extended family with eight of them children. Almost all of the adults used to work for foreign aid groups or they are female teachers, now in danger.
The young women’s mother is a principal at a girls’ high school.
Street children at the Taliban checkpoint
“Look at this death threat she received from the Taliban,” Murro shows us. She flicks through her phone to find the scrawled letter from the Taliban which was investigated and verified by the previous administration.
The letter says: “Our main aim and work is to kill all students, teachers and the principal.”
They talk about their mother opening the door to their home a few days after Kabul fell to the Islamist group to find a gaggle of armed Taliban outside.
“They just demanded food and came in,” Tabasum says. “I was standing in my bedroom just shaking. I could not believe it.”
Tabasum (not her real name) speaking to Sky’s Alex Crawford
The Taliban fighters began to regularly march into the house demanding food, or tea and asking questions about who they worked for.
“Did you work for the old government,” one Talib asked them. “There are rumours you worked for the foreigners…”
“We decided we needed to move then,” Tabasum says. They’ve been on the run ever since.
They show us photographs with the former US first lady Laura Bush taken in Washington DC. There are others standing proudly with British soldiers.
“We love our country. We were proud to work for Afghanistan and build a new future,” says 24-year-old Murro. “I empowered 900 women during my career with USAID. Now what am I? I am not empowered. I am told I cannot work and I’m told how to dress.
“I worry about the future, not just my future but my family’s future and the country’s future. Have you ever felt you are living in a country that is not your country anymore? That’s how I feel right now.”
Tabasum (not her real name) has spoken out about her experiences
They tell us of how the friends and partners they worked with for years have now turned their backs on them. How none of their emails and applications for asylum are being answered or even responded to.
WhatsApps go unread, calls are not picked up.
Tabasum was one day away from finishing her business degree. She was due to complete her thesis at one of Kabul’s top universities on Monday.
The airport suicide bombing which killed nearly two hundred including 13 US service personnel happened on the Sunday before.
“In one day, my life changed. All the lecturers left the country. The university is now empty. All four years of my studying is wasted.”
She had a job but her superiors rang her up and told her it wasn’t safe for her to come in as a woman and that she should stay at home. Almost half the staff were women, now all sitting at home.
“They don’t want me because I’m a girl,” Tabasum says. “I don’t have the right to come out of my home now without a male. Why? Because this is an inequality. I don’t have the same rights as a boy. I am nothing for them.”
“I have become invisible. I used to have a job. I am educated. I don’t need any man. But now I am just nothing.”
The Taliban has made reassurances that it respects women’s rights
She’s wearing a full-length coat and black hijab. “Before I never wore a hijab,” she says. “I wore T-shirt and jeans. Now I can’t go anywhere without covering my head and wearing these clothes.”
Despite all the reassurances from the Taliban that they respect women’s rights, the women of Afghanistan do not believe them.
And the Taliban are dealing with a tougher, better educated, more liberal Afghan woman now – many of them in their 20s or 30s.
The Taliban checkpoint at night
They have aspirations and educated minds which has put fire in their stomachs and sent courage soaring through their veins. We’ve seen them take to the streets to fight for their rights – and not back down even when staring down the barrel of a gun.
The Taliban fighters may be manning the checkpoints and prowling the area with guns but the Afghan women are not prepared to return to the times their mothers endured.
We set out to meet a female activist and mother of three who we interviewed before the Taliban took control. We will call her “Fatima”.
She also worked for a series of foreign NGO’s focused on running female empowerment courses and skill projects for women.
Colourful clothes are on sale at markets
She too received written death threats from the Taliban as well as threatening texts and frightening phone calls.
She told us weeks before the Taliban marched into the capital that she was in fear of her life and was terrified her three young children were going to be harmed as the Taliban had warned of killing her whole family.
She’d taken refuge in a women’s shelter then. Since then even that’s not safe. The Taliban have moved in and she’s moving constantly now with her family from friends’ home to friends’ home.
She was cleared to be evacuated by the British military and received a confirmation email but hours later got another warning her not to travel to the airport or the Baron Hotel because of a precise security threat which turned out to be the suicide bomber who blew himself up the following day.
Taliban checkpoint
Since then she’s been getting increasingly desperate as evacuation flights have been halted.
Those left behind who did so much service for Afghanistan and worked with such faith with the foreign partners, they never expected to leave so hurriedly, are feeling forgotten and in many ways betrayed.
“I prefer to die at sea at the hands of human traffickers trying to escape here than be killed by the Taliban,” Fatima tells us. “But I’m a prisoner here right now.”
Mark Carney’s Liberal Party has won the election in Canada, according to Canadian broadcasters, but it is too soon to say whether they will form a majority government.
Mr Carney, who took over as prime minister after Justin Trudeau stepped down earlier this year, has beaten the leader of the Conservative Party Pierre Poilievre, according to CBC and CTV News projections.
However, it is too soon to say whether the Liberals will form a majority government, they added. The party has not yet secured the 172 electoral districts it needs for a majority.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. Pic: Reuters
The election initially appeared to be a clear-cut race for the opposition Conservatives, who were enjoying a double-digit lead over the Liberals before Mr Trudeau resigned, and an intervention by Donald Trump led to a surge in support for Mr Carney’s party.
Mr Trump has repeatedly called for Canada to become the 51st US state since he was elected president for a second time and has imposed sweeping tariffs on Canada.
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Trump on why he wants Canada to be 51st state
Mr Carney has vowed to take a tougher approach with Washington over its tariffs and has said Canada will need to spend billions to reduce its reliance on the US.
Liberal supporters celebrate after Canadian broadcasters project their party has retained power. Pics: Reuters
If Mr Carney’s party only captures a minority of the House’s 343 seats, he will be forced to negotiate with other parties in order to stay in power.
Such minority governments rarely last longer than two-and-a-half years in Canada.
Canadians went to the polls after 11 people were killed in a deadly attack at a Vancouver street fair over the weekend that led to the suspension of campaigning for several hours.
Police have ruled out terrorism and said the suspect is a local man with a history of mental health issues.
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Mr Carney previously ran Canada’s central bank and later became the first non-Briton to become governor of the Bank of England.
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Power supplies have been returning in Spain and Portugal after large parts, including the capitals Madrid and Lisbon, were hit by a huge outage on Monday.
Millions of people were caught up in the chaos after the mass blackout brought many areas to a standstill, with trains stopping, planes grounded, internet and mobile phone services cut, traffic lights and ATMs down, and some routine hospital operations suspended.
Spain‘s interior ministry declared a national emergency and the two countries’ governments convened emergency cabinet meetings as officials tried to find out what caused the outage which started around 12.30pm (11.30am UK time).
A police car passes as vehicles wait in a traffic jam on the other side of the road in Madrid. Pic: Reuters
People gather outside Barcelona-Sants train station during a power outage. Pic: Reuters
Blackouts in Spain and Portugal: Follow latest updates
About half the electricity supplies in Spain have now been restored by the grid operator, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Monday evening, adding the rest should be back by Tuesday.
In a televised address, Mr Sanchez said authorities have not yet worked out what had caused the blackout in the Iberian Peninsula and were not ruling anything out.
He asked the public to refrain from speculation, and urged people to call emergency services only if really necessary.
Eduardo Prieto, the head of operations at Spanish power grid operator Red Electrica, said the event was unprecedented, calling it “exceptional and extraordinary”.
Meanwhile, Portugal‘s Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said power in his country would be fully restored in the coming hours.
He said all the state services remained operating in the country despite all the difficulties. He also said there was “no indication” a cyberattack was the cause.
Read more: Analysis – How electricity grids fail
A chef in Madrid works in a dark kitchen with the aid of his phone’s flashlight. Pic: Reuters
Fans are seen after Madrid Open matches were suspended due to a power outage. Pic: Reuters
‘Rare atmospheric phenomenon’
Portugal’s grid operator Ren claimed the outage was caused by a fault in the Spanish electricity grid, related to a “rare atmospheric phenomenon”.
Ren says that, due to extreme temperature variations in Spain, there were “anomalous oscillations” in very high-voltage lines.
It also says that given the complexity of the issue, it could take up to a week for the network to fully normalise again.
It comes as France briefly lost power following the outages in Spain and Portugal, French grid operator RTE said.
Parts of Madrid underground were evacuated and traffic lights in the city were not working, according to local media.
Play was suspended at the Madrid Open tennis tournament due to the outage – with Britain’s Jacob Fearnley forced off court in a critical moment during his third-round tie with Grigor Dimitrov.
The loss of power affected scoreboards and the camera above the court. Organisers later announced the tournament would not be able to resume on Monday, with afternoon and evening sessions cancelled.
Airports affected
Aena, which runs international airports across Spain, said earlier that “some incidents were occurring” at the airports due to the outage.
The company added in a statement: “Contingency generators are active. Please check with your airline, as there may be disruptions to access and ground transportation.”
People ‘had nowhere to go’
Maddie Sephton, who is from west London, was on the Madrid Metro when the power outage occurred.
“We got on the train and everything was fine,” she told Sky News. “But then everything went dark.”
She was stuck on the train for 20 minutes until a staff member opened the doors manually.
A metro worker passes underneath barricade tape to enter Legazpi Metro station after the outage. Pic: Reuters
A view shows a transmission tower during a power outage near Barcelona in Spain. Pic: Reuters
Mrs Sephton says she was on her way to the airport at the time – and had to exit the station by walking up 15 flights of stairs with her luggage.
“No lifts are operating – making it difficult for elderly people with limited mobility,” she added.
Above ground, she said that “everyone is just standing around and waiting”.
Medical staff relocate a patient in Pamplona, Pic: AP
Bars were unable to take card payments, cash machines are down, and traffic lights weren’t working either.
“I currently don’t have any internet service and just €15 in my wallet – I can’t withdraw any money from the ATM,” she added.
“A couple have offered to let us get a ride in their taxi to the airport. Their flight is at 4.30pm so they’re pretty relaxed – but my flight back to London is at 3pm and I’m nervous.”
Mrs Sephton said: “People are just walking but have nowhere to go, and nothing to do.”
Traffic lights have stopped working following a power outage in downtown Lisbon, Portugal. Pic: AP
People try to board a crowded bus after the subway stopped running following a power outage in Lisbon, Portugal. Pic: AP
Meanwhile, thousands of passengers had to be evacuated after the blackout left the metro service in Barcelona without power.
The blackout was also reported to have forced the closure of the city’s tram system and rendered some traffic lights there inoperable.
It has also impacted medical facilities, with hospitals in Madrid and Catalonia forced to suspend routine medical work. Staff have been able to attend to critical patients using power from backup generators.
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It comes as Metrovalencia, the urban rail system, encompassing both metro and tram services in Valencia, said traffic in the city was “disrupted” due to a “general power outage in the city”.
The outage also hit the Portuguese capital Lisbon and surrounding areas, as well as northern and southern parts of the country.
Portugal’s government said the incident appeared to stem from problems outside the country, an official told national news agency Lusa.
“It looks like it was a problem with the distribution network, apparently in Spain. It’s still being ascertained,” Cabinet Minister Leitão Amaro was quoted as saying.
We rarely think about how essential and reliable electricity grids are until they fail.
Now, millions of people across Spain, Portugal and parts of France are likely thinking of little else.
While local power cuts are fairly common, what’s happened across the Iberian peninsula is something far more extreme.
Much of Spain and Portugal’s electricity transmission system collapsed in seconds including in major cities Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona and Seville.
Blackouts latest: ‘Rare atmospheric phenomenon’ behind outages
It’s likely the outage will surpass Europe’s largest blackout to date when 56 million people in Italy and Switzerland lost power for up to 12 hours in 2023.
The cause of the outage is unclear. Portugal’s grid operator has blamed a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” that caused “anomalous oscillations” in high voltage power lines in Spain.
Spain’s grid operator has yet to respond to that or provide an update on the cause. But it’s unlikely whatever caused the outage was a single, localised event.
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Mayhem in Spain after major power outage
A major power line going down can cause a large outage – as it did in 2021, when an interconnector between France and Spain failed leaving a million people without power for a few hours.
But it’s unlikely to cause a system-wide failure of the kind we’re seeing now.
However, when things do start to fail on a power grid, they can cascade uncontrollably.
Keeping a grid running is a constant and highly complex balancing act.
People outside a terminal at Lisbon Airport during the blackout. Pic: Reuters
Spain’s mains AC electricity supply grid, like ours in the UK, runs at 50Hz. That frequency is based on the speed at which generating hardware such as gas and nuclear turbines spin.
If there are sudden fluctuations in power supply or demand – a power station failing or a high voltage power line going down, for example – the frequency of AC power in the transmission lines changes and circuit breakers trip to protect either the transmission network, or power plant hardware from burning out.
To prevent such failures, grid engineers constantly measure and forecast supply and demand to keep the grid balanced.
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To protect the system in emergencies, they occasionally have to “shed load” by cutting power to parts of the grid – the reason we’ve all experienced the occasional short-lived power cut.
But if balance is lost, a grid can fail in a domino effect with sections of the grid tripping, then power plants shutting down to protect themselves from the drop in demand, one after another.
The challenge now, and it’s a nightmare for Spain and Portugal’s power engineers, is to gradually restore the grid section by section while maintaining the balance of supply and demand.
Act too fast, and the grid can trip again. Take too long and some power plants or substations might struggle to restart – especially if they rely on battery power to do so.
While some regions of Spain have already had power restored, and Portugal says its power will be back to normal within hours, it could take much longer for the system to be fully restored.
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