Thousands of terrified families fear for their lives and no longer see Afghanistan as their home
The desperation of those in Afghanistan is heart-rending.
It’s in the faces of those who sit for hours with their children and their suitcases outside the building where one of the few airlifts is being organised.
It’s contained in the dozens of emails sent to me: “You are a journalist. I am too. Please help me. You are my only hope. If I die, tell the UK government that there was a girl that was killed by the Taliban just because of doing something for her people and her country.”
It’s in the multiple texts from human rights defenders who tell me the Taliban are knocking on their door and they don’t want to die.
“Please will anyone help us?”
It’s in the tears of a young journalist who silently shows us a video of himself where he’s being beaten by a Talib.
The Talib is using the butt of his weapon to hit his legs and back. He then ties the reporter’s hands and drags him along by rope that he’s attached to the back of his motorbike.
The torture and humiliation went on for two days before he escaped. The video is a few years old but the trauma is very present day – and back then, the Taliban were not in charge.
Now they are holding the guns and the levers of power. “If they catch me again, they will kill me,” the journalist says. This desperation is everywhere.
The Taliban claim they have changed
The state of Qatar is one of only two nations trying to operate airlifts. Pakistan is the other. But this involves careful and challenging negotiations with the Taliban who go through every flight list and examine every name on it.
The evacuation may be officially over. (It ended with the pull out of the foreign troops at the end of August).
But there are still thousands of terrified families who no longer see Afghanistan as their home and who fear for their lives.
Among them are those who have British and other foreign passports. We see them waving their red or new blue UK passports outside the barricaded building which is guarded by armed Talibs but which beyond, lies the route to safety and home.
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Afghanistan: Women living in fear
They’re struggling to get their names on the flight manifest and many tell us they feel abandoned by the British government.
Like many Afghans, they have large extended families often with multiple relatives employed in the same field – who once worked for the British embassy or British-funded charities or British-run projects rebuilding Afghanistan.
“My father worked for the British embassy”, one tells me. “He has a letter of commendation.” He does and it’s sent to me.
But the commendation once so proudly received is now tantamount to a Taliban death sentence.
The Taliban promised a general amnesty for those who worked with the former government they ousted and the foreign invaders they chased out – but on the ground, the reality is very different. There are scores being settled and revenge being sought.
Taliban fighters repeatedly try to stop us from filming the people trying to secure a ticket out of Afghanistan.
One keeps on hitting my colleague Richie Mockler’s camera, others put their hands in front of his lens. They pull and shove our Afghan colleague who tries to put himself between the Talibs and the Sky team.
The paperwork we have been issued by the Taliban themselves giving us permission to film in the country appears to be worthless at this point. We are repeatedly urged to show “the real image” of the Taliban – by the Taliban and constantly told they have “changed” and evolved.
But there is a real fear amongst those who worked alongside the foreigners and they are not reassured by these claims.
The Taliban don’t want people to leave the country. They don’t want images broadcast of people trying to get out. They want the foreign governments to return, set up their embassies and restart the aid which the bulk of the country has become so reliant on.
Because of this, there are strict rules about who gets on the flight list and it is restricted to those with foreign passports – not their dependants, not the Afghans who worked for the foreigners, not those now being targeted.
It’s tough for those trying to operate the flight lists and work with these conditions. We see the Qatari officials working through the night trying to juggle passports, IDs, and coordinate with multiple countries to verify people on the flight list.
“But you have no passport,” I overhear one say down the telephone. “You need to have a passport to travel – and a visa, only then we can help you.”
They are people with families themselves. They know how hard it must be to leave behind an elderly parent or a sister who is now a Taliban target – and the decision-making does not get any easier.
We meet three men in a Kabul cafe who all have British passports but large families with many relatives who do not.
“I’ve lived in Ilford for about 20 years,” one tells us. “I met Boris (Johnson) when I was a taxi driver. He asked me if he thought he could be Mayor of London. He was that uncertain. I said yes go for it. You can do it, Boris.
“But now, I’m very disappointed with him. He’s left us all here. We are British taxpayers. We don’t pay our taxes for the government to invade countries. We pay them to get their help but we aren’t getting any help for our families. My MP is trying to help us but the Foreign Office isn’t even replying to him. We are told just to wait.”
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Hospitals struggle under Taliban rule
There’s a sudden rush after waiting all day to board the convoy the Qataris have organised to take hundreds of “approved” refugees to the airport. But the Taliban have disputed the flight list that had been drawn up.
The bulk of people who were on it are now NOT on it. Only three coaches carrying about 40 people set off for the heavily guarded airport. There are dozens of armed Taliban around the perimeter wearing army fatigues and special ops goggles, flak jackets, helmets and ammunition belts, carrying brand new American weapons.
They wave the convoy through and the families heave their suitcases out of the coaches and move quickly towards the airport entrance. Qatari officials are trying to rush them through. The deadline is dusk. The plane cannot fly after dark because of security and more practically because there are no lights on the runway.
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The young mother of two toddlers weeps next to me as she lines up waiting to be patted down at airport security. But there are no women to do the physical security checks for the line of females right now. The new Taliban-controlled Afghanistan doesn’t see much of a role for females.
They’ve been told not to report for work unless they are health workers and girls have been told not to return to school “for the time being”.
“My country is gone,” the young mother tells me as she’s cradling her baby girl. “We cannot live here anymore. I don’t know if I will ever return. Everything is broken.”
A short time later, exasperated Qatari officials are returning to the queues of waiting refugees with handfuls of passports.
“The flight has been cancelled,” they say. “There’s no one at immigration.”
We hear the plane taking off – empty – and the refugees turn around to spend another night wondering if they’re going to be allowed to leave this country they don’t recognise anymore.
The Qataris again work throughout the night trying to hammer out an agreement with the Taliban to allow the plane to land in Kabul, and to decide on a flight list that is acceptable to everybody.
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How popular is the Taliban in Afghanistan?
By mid-afternoon the following day, it seems there is. Two hundred and thirty-six people are taken in a convoy to the airport this time after an official called “extensive consultation with parties on the ground”.
It’s the fourth flight Qatar has managed to organise and by far the largest passenger evacuation since 31 August when the foreign troops were still in Afghanistan and the airlifts were in full flow.
This time, the Taliban have called back the former airport staff and there are two women security workers. They tell me how their lives have changed so dramatically in such a short time.
“They tell us to wear long dresses (abaya), to cover our heads. They even tell me I must cut my nails, that they are too long.” She pulls off her plastic gloves to show me beautifully manicured nails now forbidden under the new Taliban rules.
The refugees take final pictures of their country as they board the flight to safety and a new, uncertain life. Few think they’ll be back soon – and they leave behind thousands still fearing for their lives who are trapped.
Alex Crawford reports from Kabul with cameraman Richie Mockler and producers Chris Cunningham and Mark Grant.
Additional pictures by Chris Cunningham.
World
His only ‘crime’ is being Venezuelan and having tattoos, says brother of man ‘thrown to the lions’ in El Salvador jail
Until five weeks ago, Arturo Suarez was a professional singer, performing in the United States as he waited for his asylum claim to be processed.
Originally from Venezuela, he had entered the US through proper, legal channels.
But he is now imprisoned in a notorious jail in El Salvador, sent there by the Trump administration, despite seemingly never having faced trial or committed any crime. The White House claims he is a gang member but has not provided evidence to support this allegation.
His brother, Nelson Suarez, told Sky News he believes his brother’s only “crime” is being Venezuelan and having tattoos.
Arturo Suarez, in a music video, is now in a notorious prison in El Salvador
“He is not a gang member,” Nelson says, adamantly, “I’ve come to the conclusion that it has to be because of the tattoos. If you don’t have a criminal record, you haven’t committed any crime in the United States, what other reason could there be? Because you’re Venezuelan?”
Arturo, 34, was recording a music video inside a house in March when he was arrested by immigration agents.
He was first taken to a deportation centre in El Paso, Texas, and then, it appears, put on to a military flight to El Salvador.
Nelson Suarez insists his brother Arturo is not a gang member
His family have not heard from him since. Lawyers and immigrant rights groups have been unable to make contact with any of the more than 200 Venezuelan men sent to the CECOT prison, which holds members of the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs.
Tattoo clue to Arturo Suarez’s whereabouts
Nelson learned his brother is – most likely – in CECOT only because of a photograph he spotted on a news website of a group of inmates, with their hands and feet cuffed, heads shaved and bodies shackled together.
A group of inmates are processed to be imprisoned in the CECOT jail in EL Salvador. Pic: Reuters
Nelson Suarez believes this is his brother Arturo Suarez due to his distinctive hummingbird tattoo. Pic: Reuters
“You can see the hummingbird tattoo on his neck,” Nelson says, pointing to the picture. He says Arturo wanted a hummingbird in memory of their late mother. Arturo has 33 tattoos in total, including a piano, poems and verses from the Bible.
It could be that one, or more, of those tattoos landed him at the centre of President Trump’s anti-immigration showpiece. Nelson shows me documents which indicate that Arturo did not have a criminal record in Venezuela, Chile, Colombia or the United States, the four countries he has lived in.
Sky News contacted the White House, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for a response to Arturo’s case but have not heard back.
In March, Donald Trump signed the Alien Enemies Act, a law from 1798 which has been invoked just three times before, in wartime.
It allows the president to detain and deport immigrants living legally in the US if they are from countries deemed “enemies” of the government. In this instance, Mr Trump claimed the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had “infiltrated the United States” and was “conducting irregular warfare”.
Alleged gang members imprisoned in the CECOT jail in El Salvador. Pic: Reuters
Gang symbol tattoos
Immigration officials have centred on certain tattoos being gang symbols. Immigration officers were provided with a document called the “Alien Enemy Validation Guide”, according to a court filing from the American Civil Liberties Union. The document provides a point-based system to determine if an immigrant in custody “may be validated” as a gang member.
Migrants who score six points and higher may be designated as members of the Tren de Aragua gang, according to the document. Tattoos which fall under a “symbolism” category score four points and social media posts “displaying” gang symbols are two points. Tattoos considered suspicious, according to the document, include crowns, stars and the Michael Jordan Jumpman logo.
Jerce Reyes Barrios’s story
Another of the men sent to CECOT prison is 36-year-old Jerce Reyes Barrios, who fled Venezuela last year after marching in anti-government protests. He is a former footballer and football coach.
His lawyer, Linette Tobin, told Sky News that Reyes Barrios entered the US legally after waiting in Mexico for four months for an immigration appointment and then presenting himself at the border.
Jerce Reyes Barrios
She says he was detained in a maximum security prison in the US while awaiting his asylum appointment. But before that appointment happened, he was flown to the El Salvador prison.
Ms Tobin says the DHS deported Reyes Barrios because they designated him a Tren De Aragua gang member based on two pieces of evidence.
The first, she says, is a tattoo of the Real Madrid football team logo surrounded by rosary beads. She has since obtained a declaration from the tattoo artist stating that Reyes Barrios just wanted an image which depicted his favourite team.
Jerce Reyes Barrios’s lawyer says he has a tattoo of the Real Madrid logo surrounded by rosary beads
The second piece of evidence, she says, is a photograph, which she shows me, of Reyes Barrios in a hot tub with friends when he was a college student 13 years ago.
He is making a gesture which could be interpreted as “rock and roll”, but which she says has been interpreted as a gang symbol.
Lawyer Linette Tobin says this gesture has been interpreted as a gang symbol
Distraught family in despair
Reyes Barrios has no criminal record in his home country. “I’ve never known anything like this,” Ms Tobin says.
“My client was deported to a third country and we have no way of getting in touch with him. His family are distraught and in despair, they cry a lot, not knowing what is going on with him. We want him returned to the United States to have a hearing and due process.”
Ms Tobin says she and other lawyers representing men sent to the El Salvador prison are trying to establish a UN working group on enforced disappearances to do a wellness check on them because the prison is completely “incommunicado”.
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17 March: US migrants deported to El Salvador
Sky News contacted the DHS for comment about Reyes Barrios’s case but did not receive a response. The DHS previously issued a statement declaring that “DHS intelligence assessments go well beyond just gang-affiliated tattoos. This man’s own social media indicates he is a member of Tren de Aragua”.
Reyes Barrios has an immigration hearing scheduled for 17 April, Ms Tobin says, which the Trump administration is trying to dismiss on the grounds that he is not in the US anymore.
In the meantime, children he used to coach football for in his hometown of Machiques in Venezuela have been holding a prayer vigil for him and calling for his release.
The secretary of the DHS, Kristi Noem, visited CECOT last month and posed for photos standing in front of inmates behind bars.
Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem visited CECOT in March. Pic: Reuters
“Do not come to our country illegally,” she said, “you will be removed, and you will be prosecuted.” Donald Trump had promised during his election campaign to clamp down on immigration, railing against undocumented immigrants and claiming immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”.
I ask Arturo Suarez’s brother, Nelson, how he felt watching Ms Noem posing in the prison, knowing that his brother might be close by.
“I feel bad,” he says, “I feel horrible, because in those images we only see criminals. With my brother, I feel it is more a political issue. They needed numbers, they said, these are the numbers, and now, let’s throw them to the lions.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Pic: AP
Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s story
The Trump administration has admitted that at least one man sent to the El Salvador jail was sent by “administrative error”. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was living in Maryland, was sent to CECOT despite a judge’s earlier ruling in 2019 that granted him legal protection to stay in the US.
The White House has alleged Garcia is an MS-13 gang member, but his lawyers argued there is no evidence to prove this.
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A federal judge has ordered Garcia must be returned to the US by Monday 7 April. In a post on X, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller referred to the judge as a “Marxist”, who “now thinks she’s president of El Salvador”.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “We suggest the judge contact President Bukele because we are unaware of the judge having jurisdiction or authority over the country of El Salvador.”
World
Israeli airstrikes kill more than 30 people in Gaza – including more than a dozen women and children
Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 30 people in Gaza, including over a dozen women and children, local health officials have said.
Strikes overnight into Sunday hit a tent and a house in Khan Younis, killing five men, five women and five children, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies.
Later on Sunday, at least two people were killed, and six others injured when an Israeli airstrike hit a tent in Khan Younis located outside the Nasser hospital, which was being used as a base by a number of journalists.
A number of them were among the injured, according to hospital officials.
Footage showed a journalist being engulfed by flames after his tent was hit by an airstrike. He is reported to be in a critical condition.
On Sunday, at least two people were killed, and six others injured when an Israeli airstrike hit a tent in Khan Younis which was being used as a base by a number of journalists. Pic: AP
Pic: AP
Pic: AP
Israeli shelling killed at least four people in the Jabaliya refugee camp, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry.
The bodies of seven people, including a child and three women, arrived at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, according to an Associated Press journalist there.
And a strike in Gaza City hit people waiting outside a bakery, killing six, including three children, according to the civil defence, which operates under the Hamas-run government.
Last month, Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas and restarted its air and ground offensive.
It has carried out waves of strikes and seized territory in an attempt to pressure Hamas to accept a new deal for a truce and release the remaining hostages.
It has also blocked the import of food, fuel and humanitarian aid for over a month.
“Stocks are getting low and the situation is becoming desperate,” the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said on social media.
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Israel ‘seizing territory’ in Gaza
On Sunday night, Israel’s military ordered Palestinians to evacuate several neighbourhoods in Gaza’s Deir al Balah shortly after around 10 projectiles were fired from Gaza.
The military said around five were intercepted, and Hamas’s military arm claimed responsibility.
Police said a rocket fell in Ashkelon, an Israeli city just to the north of Gaza, and fragments fell in several other areas.
The Magen David Adom emergency service said one man was lightly injured, and the military later said it struck a rocket launcher in Gaza.
A woman bakes bread in an oven in Gaza City. Pic: Reuters
Netanyahu visits Trump
It comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to the United States to meet with Donald Trump to discuss the war.
Mr Netanyahu said the pair would also discuss the new 17% tariff imposed on Israel as part of Mr Trump’s sweeping new tariffs.
“There is a very large queue of leaders who want to do this with respect to their economies. I think it reflects the special personal connection and the special connection between the United States and Israel, which is so vital at this time,” Mr Netanyahu said during a visit to Hungary.
The war between Israel and Hamas began when Hamas-led militants invaded Israel on 7 October 2023 and killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostage.
Some 59 hostages are still being held in Gaza, with 24 still believed to be alive.
Israel’s offensive has killed at least 50,695 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians or combatants, with another 115,338 wounded.
Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants.
Marine Le Pen made one thing abundantly clear. She is not going quietly.
She may have been disgraced in a Paris courtroom, convicted of embezzlement, sentenced and barred from office for five years.
But there was no sense of shame or regret in her speech to the party faithful. Nor would you expect there to be. She is the victim of an establishment stitch-up, she believes, or claims to, and the crowds watching her speak in the French capital heartily agreed.
The hard-right National Rally party’s leader was found guilty of being part of a huge and orchestrated campaign to swindle the European parliament and its taxpayers, using phony accounts to raise millions.
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Le Pen invokes Martin Luther King Jr
The judge in the case saw a politician who had long campaigned for tougher penalties for corrupt politicians and decided it only fitting to throw the book at her.
For political foes, watching their most feared enemy sent off the pitch, is all very welcome. Former prime minister Gabriel Attal told supporters at another rally she stole money and should do the punishment.
But even Le Pen’s rivals are queasy about the five-year ban from office. Some legal observers believe the judge went too far.
Whatever the rights or wrongs of the case, it does nothing to ease the country’s political crisis.
Nothing to address the festering sense of un-enfranchised grievance on the fringes of society that helped propel Le Pen to such popularity in the first place.
Jordan Bardella, National Rally’s president, spoke at the same event. Pic: Reuters
Read more:
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And other populists in France and abroad are exploiting this as a cause celebre for all it’s worth.
Populists see society divided between “the people” and corrupt elites governing them.
Le Pen’s plight fits their narrative perfectly. Not surprisingly, her speech was preceded by a series of short videos from other rightist populists, from Mateo Salvini in Italy to Geert Wilders in the Netherlands.
In America, Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk have also pitched in.
Le Pen may have been banished into the political wilderness but can still cause enormous trouble from there.
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