British couple held in Afghanistan have ‘never heard one accusation or one charge’
An elderly British couple being held in a high security prison in Afghanistan have “never heard one accusation or one charge”, their son has told Sky News.
Peter Reynolds, 79, and his wife Barbie, 75, were detained by the Taliban’s interior ministry on 1 February.
The couple married in Kabul in 1970 and have lived in Afghanistan for the last 18 years.
They run Rebuild, an organisation that provides education and training programmes.
Last month, they were moved to a maximum security prison in Kabul.
Pic: Reynolds family
Their son Jonathan, speaking from Chicago, told Sky News that nine weeks on, he cannot say why the couple are still being held, but he and his siblings are extremely worried for their welfare and are asking for help from any possible source.
The Taliban’s motives in locking his parents up remain unclear, he added.
While they have been able to speak to their parents a “number of times from a pay phone within the prison” it’s been a “rollercoaster of emotions”, Mr Reynolds said.
He explained that within the Afghan prison system, women are fed only once a day, while there is more food for the men.
In addition, the women “have to pay for their own food”.
Pic: Reynolds family
The Qatari government has been able to get medicine and money to the couple – who are being held separately – and Mr Reynolds said he was extremely grateful for the Qataris’ help.
Regarding possible reasons for the incarceration, Mr Reynolds said: “I believe there have been 29 investigative interviews with staff members – people they have served and supported – and everything has come up as no credible charges.
“They took a short flight to pick up a Chinese-American friend who has visited multiple times.
“Originally they (authorities) said they didn’t have the right paperwork to have a chartered plane, which was incorrect and it was all produced.
“So that was dropped.”
The couple married in Kabul in 1970. Pic: Reynolds family
Asked whether his parents had been naive, Mr Reynolds said: “I think anyone who goes in their 60s and 70s to live and become Afghan citizens is probably not naive to the dangers of it.
“If they wanted to live a quiet, retired life and be around their grandkids they could have done that.
“They are under a deep conviction from back in the late 60s when they married in Afghanistan in 1970 that they were going to give their life for a bright future for Afghanistan.”
He added that when the Taliban took over, the British government offered to get them out, but they replied: “Why would we leave these people in their darkest hour?”
Pic: Reynolds family
The Reynolds’ daughter Sarah says it is the longest they have gone without speaking to each other since becoming “sweethearts in the 1960s”.
While Sarah said her father had lost weight, she added that he can “find light in the darkest of places”.
At the end of February, the Taliban claimed the arrests happened because of a “misunderstanding” that the Reynolds had fake Afghan passports.
The day before that, the BBC reported the Taliban as saying they would endeavour to release the couple “as soon as possible”.
The twin threats of climate change and Russian malign activity in the Arctic must be taken “deadly seriously,” David Lammy has warned.
Sky News joined him on the furthest reaching tour of the Arctic by a British foreign secretary.
We travelled to Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago that is the most northern settled land on Earth, 400 miles from the North Pole.
It is at the heart of an Arctic region facing growing geopolitical tension and feeling the brunt of climate change.
Mr Lammy told us the geopolitics of the region must be taken “deadly seriously” due to climate change and “the threats we’re seeing from Russia”.
We witnessed the direct impact of climate change along Svalbard’s coastline and inland waterways. There is less ice, we were told, compared to the past.
David Lammy and Norway’s Foreign Minister Barth Eide view the melting Blomstrandbreen glacier. Pic: PA
The melting ice is opening up the Arctic and allowing Russia more freedom to manoeuvre.
“We do see Russia’s shadow fleet using these waters,” Mr Lammy said. “We do see increased activity from submarines with nuclear capability under our waters and we do see hybrid sabotage of undersea cables at this time.”
In Tromso, further south, the foreign secretary was briefed by Norwegian military commanders.
The foreign secretary visiting SvalSat, a satellite ground station which monitors climate in Svalbard. Pic: PA
Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, the Chief of Norwegian Joint Headquarters, told Sky News the Russian threat was explicit.
“Russia has stated that they are in confrontation with the West and are utilising a lot of hybrid methods to undermine Western security,” he said.
But it’s not just Vladimir Putin they’re worried about. Norwegian observers are concerned by US president Donald Trump’s strange relationship with the Russian leader too.
Norwegian observers are concerned about the Russian leader – and Trump being ‘too soft’ on him. Pic: AP
Karsten Friis, a Norwegian defence and security analyst, told Sky News: “If he’s too soft on Putin, if he is kind of normalising relations with Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“I would expect Russia to push us, to test us, to push borders, to see what we can do as Europeans.”
Changes in the Arctic mean new challenges for the NATO military alliance – including stepping up activity to deter threats, most of all from Russia.
More from Sky News:
Trump doubles down on Putin criticism
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In Iceland, we toured a NATO airbase with the foreign secretary.
There, he said maintaining robust presence in the Arctic was essential for western security.
“Let’s be clear, in this challenging geopolitical moment the high north and the Arctic is a heavily contested arena and we should be under no doubt that NATO and the UK need to protect it for our own national security.”
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
This is also about distracting Russia, drawing away resources that could have been used in the war in Ukraine and deterring it in the future.
Because the more Arctic opens up, the more this once pristine wilderness is becoming the arena of national rivalry and potentially conflict.
World
‘What did they do to be burned and bombed?’: Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment
A British charity has written to the prime minister and foreign secretary, urging them to allow seriously ill children from Gaza into the UK to receive life-saving medical treatment.
Warning: This article contains images readers may find distressing
The co-founder of Project Pure Hope told Sky News it was way past the time for words.
“Now, we need action,” Omar Dinn said.
He’s identified two children inside Gaza who urgently need help and is appealing to the UK government to issue visas as a matter of urgency.
Israel-Gaza latest: Netanyahu reportedly accepts US ceasefire plan
Britain has taken only two patients from Gaza for medical treatment in 20 months of Israeli bombardment.
Children are among the bulk of the casualties in Gaza
“Most of the people affected by this catastrophe that’s unfolding in Gaza are children,” he continued. “And children are the most vulnerable.
“They have nothing to do with the politics, and we really just need to see them for what they are.
“They are children, just like my children, just like everybody’s children in this country – and we have the ability to help them.”
Sky News has been sent video blogs from British surgeons working in Gaza right now which show the conditions and difficulties they’re working under.
They prepare for potential immediate evacuation whilst facing long lists, mainly of children, needing life-saving emergency treatment day after day.
Dr Victoria Rose is a British surgeon working in southern Gaza’s last remaining hospital
Dr Victoria Rose told us: “Every time I come, I say it’s really bad, but this is on a completely different scale now. It’s mass casualties. It’s utter carnage.
“We are incapable of getting through this volume. We don’t have the personnel. We don’t have the medical supplies. And we really don’t have the facilities.
“We are the last standing hospital in the south of Gaza. We really are on our knees now.”
One of her patients is three-year-old Hatem, who was badly burned when an Israeli airstrike hit the family apartment.
Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
His pregnant mother and father were both killed, leaving him an orphan. He has 35 percent burns on his small body.
“It’s a massive burn for a little guy like this,” Dr Rose says. “He’s so adorable. His eyelids are burnt. His hands are burnt. His feet are burnt.”
Hatem’s grandfather barely leaves his hospital bedside. Hatem Senior told us: “What did these children do wrong to suffer such injuries? To be burned and bombed? We ask God to grant them healing.”
Hatem Senior
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The second child identified by the charity is Karam, who, aged one, is trying to survive in a tent in deeply unhygienic surroundings with a protruding intestine.
He’s suffering from a birth defect called Hirschsprung disease, which could be easily operated on with the right skills and equipment – unavailable to him in Gaza right now.
Read more:
Gaza doctor’s nine children killed
How the new Gaza aid rollout collapsed
Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
Karam’s mother Manal told our Gaza camera crew: “No matter how much I describe how much my son is suffering, I wouldn’t be able to describe it enough. I swear I am constantly crying.”
Children are among the bulk of casualties – some 16,000 have been killed, according to the latest figures from local health officials – and make up the majority of those being operated on, according to the British surgical team on the ground.
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