After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021, the UK government made a promise to take in those who had helped UK forces during the war, and those most vulnerable to persecution.
But many of the most at-risk, including “thousands” of LGBT+ Afghans, were left behind, according to Nemat Sadat, the executive director of LGBT+ charity Roshaniya.
Speaking to the Sky News Daily podcast with Niall Paterson, Sadat, who left Afghanistan in 2013 after hostility to his sexuality, said that “there’s really no future left for LGBT+ people in Afghanistan”.
Homosexuality is currently illegal under Afghanistan’s Islamic law, and transgender people are not recognised by the state. The punishment for being gay is the death penalty.
“It’s the probably the worst place to be an LGBT+ person. And under the Taliban rule, under Sharia law, the Taliban are continuing to entrap LGBT+ people. Once they find an LGBT+ person, they torture them,” Sadat continued.
“And they tell us, if you want this torture to end, you have to basically present us with your entire network of LGBT+ people, give us their names, give us their contact information so we can track and find them.”
One gay man still in Afghanistan is 23-year-old Arseen. We’ve changed his name to protect his identity.
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He told the Sky News Daily: “I’m escaping from my own family right now because my uncles, they are religious leaders, they beat me.”
He described how, despite Afghanistan being hostile to the LGBT+ community before, at least he could continue with his life. Now, Arseen lives in hiding, after losing his work and then university placement, for fear of being outed. “I’m losing my hope for my future. The Taliban, they destroyed every chance [of one].”
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Both Arseen and Sadat accuse the UK government of not doing enough to support and protect LGBT+ Afghans.
One of the schemes designed to help resettle Afghans in the UK following the Taliban takeover is the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme. Among the scheme’s priority groups are LGBT+ people.
The Sky News Daily asked the Home Office, which runs the scheme, for a response. It directed Sky News to the Foreign Office.
An FCDO spokesperson said: “The UK was one of the first countries since the fall of Kabul to facilitate a safe relocation route for at-risk LGBT+ Afghans. Many are already in the UK, while some have been relocated to other safe countries or are undergoing processing in third countries for relocation to the UK. We will continue to do all we can to help at-risk LGBT+ Afghans.”
It was in the evening that the bombing started to intensify.
Salah Jundia, his father and brothers huddled together in their home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City, trying to work out what to do.
It was too risky for them to leave at night. There were a lot of them too. Extended family living across four storeys. They decided they would wait until after dawn prayers.
The explosion tore through the building just before 5am, collapsing one storey on to the next.
Image: The aftermath of Israel’s bombing campaign in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City
Image: Salah Jundia
Jundia says he survived because pieces of bedroom furniture fell on top of him.
Then he looked for his father and brothers.
“I found one of them calling for help. I removed the rubble covering him with my hands. Then I saw another brother covered in rubble but he was dead,” he told Sky News.
Jundia added: “My father was also dead. My other brother was also dead. We got them out and that is when I saw that the whole building had collapsed.”
Over the next few hours, they scrambled to rescue who they could.
An aunt and uncle and one of their children, Shaimaa. Uncle Imad and his son Mohammad. The bodies of Montasir and Mustaf.
Image: One of the child victims of the attack on the home near the Gaza City
Image: Another one of child victims of the attack
Jundia says he could hear cries for help, but they were coming from deep in the rubble and were impossible to reach.
The rescue teams on site – civil defence they are called – did not have the kit to clear through three floors of 500 square metres, 30cm slabs of concrete.
Image: Rescuers drilling to try and reach the people trapped below the rubble
Image: Efforts to free those trapped beneath the rubble near the Gaza City
In the afternoon, Jundia says Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) told rescue teams to leave as they would be resuming their bombardment.
Jundia buried the bodies he had managed to pull out but he knew 15 of his family members, 12 of them children, were still somewhere inside the rubble, still crying for help.
He made a desperate video appeal, begging the Red Cross and Arab countries to pressure Israel to grant access to the site. It was picked up on a few social media accounts.
Israel won’t allow heavy equipment into Gaza. No diggers or bulldozers, nor the fuel or generators to run them.
They say it will fall into Hamas’s hands.
It was a major sticking point during the ceasefire and it is a major issue now as the bombardment continues, given the fact that hundreds if not thousands of civilians might survive if there were the equipment to extract them.
Image: Members of Salah Jundia’s family left alive after the attack
Image: Salah Jundia and his surviving family
Civil defence trying to get to the Jundia family home over the next few days were halted because the IDF were in the vicinity. A family friend tried himself and was killed.
The footage that our camera teams have shot in Shujaiyya over the past two weeks shows how civil defence teams struggle to save those who are trapped and injured with the most rudimentary of equipment – plastering trowels, sledgehammers, ropes and small drills.
“The tight siege stops civil defence equipment from getting in,” says one.
They added: “So we are taking much longer to respond to these events. Time is a factor in getting these people out. So we call immediately for the necessary equipment to be allowed in for the civil defence to use.”
The IDF say they are investigating the circumstances around the Jundia family as a result of our enquiries.
In relation to the access of heavy equipment into Gaza, they say they work closely with international aid organisations to enable the delivery of humanitarian activities in accordance with international law.
The last contact Jundia had from beneath the rubble was a phone call from his uncle Ziad, three days after the strike.
“The line was open for 25 seconds then it went dead. We don’t know what happened. We tried to call, but there was no answer,” he says.
He and his family were displaced several times before they returned home to Shujaiyya – to Rafah in the south, then Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.
Along the way, Jundia lost one brother and a nephew to Israeli bombs.
“We were happy and all the family came back. We went back to our house. It was damaged, but we improvised and we lived in it. We have nothing to do with the resistance. We are not interested in wars. But we have been gravely harmed,” he says.
China’s economy performed better than expected in the first quarter of the year – but it reflects a moment in time before the explosive trade war with the US, which has seen the world’s two biggest economies effectively decouple.
Economists had predicted that gross domestic product would grow by about 5.1% in January to March, compared with a year earlier. In the end, it grew 5.4%.
But these impressive figures obscure the very serious challenges China’s economy is facing in the wake of Donald Tump’s trade war – and it is almost certain growth will not remain this strong as the year goes on.
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It was in the evening that the bombing started to intensify.
Salah Jundia, his father and brothers huddled together in their home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City, trying to work out what to do.
It was too risky for them to leave at night. There were a lot of them too. Extended family living across four storeys. They decided they would wait until after dawn prayers.
The explosion tore through the building just before 5am, collapsing one storey on to the next.
Image: The remains of Salah Jundia’s home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City
Image: Salah Jundia
Jundia says he survived because pieces of bedroom furniture fell on top of him.
Then he looked for his father and brothers.
“I found one of them calling for help. I removed the rubble covering him with my hands. Then I saw another brother covered in rubble but he was dead,” he told Sky News.
Jundia added: “My father was also dead. My other brother was also dead. We got them out and that is when I saw that the whole building had collapsed.”
Over the next few hours, they scrambled to rescue who they could.
Image: One of the child victims of the attack on the home near the Gaza City
Image: Another one of child victims of the attack
An aunt and uncle and one of their children, Shaimaa. Uncle Imad and his son Mohammad. The bodies of Montasir and Mustaf.
Jundia says he could hear cries for help, but they were coming from deep in the rubble and were impossible to reach.
The rescue teams on site – civil defence they are called – did not have the kit to clear through three floors of 500 square metres, 30cm slabs of concrete.
Image: Rescuers drilling to try and reach the people trapped below the rubble
Image: Efforts to free those trapped beneath the rubble near the Gaza City
In the afternoon, Jundia says Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) told rescue teams to leave as they would be resuming their bombardment.
Jundia buried the bodies he had managed to pull out but he knew 15 of his family members, 12 of them children, were still somewhere inside the rubble, still crying for help.
He made a desperate video appeal, begging the Red Cross and Arab countries to pressure Israel to grant access to the site. It was picked up on a few social media accounts.
Israel won’t allow heavy equipment into Gaza. No diggers or bulldozers, nor the fuel or generators to run them.
They say it will fall into Hamas’s hands.
It was a major sticking point during the ceasefire and it is a major issue now as the bombardment continues, given the fact that hundreds if not thousands of civilians might survive if there were the equipment to extract them.
Image: Members of Salah Jundia’s family left alive after the attack
Image: Salah Jundia and his surviving family
Civil defence trying to get to the Jundia family home over the next few days were halted because the IDF were in the vicinity. A family friend tried himself and was killed.
The footage that our camera teams have shot in Shujaiyya over the past two weeks shows how civil defence teams struggle to save those who are trapped and injured with the most rudimentary of equipment – plastering trowels, sledgehammers, ropes and small drills.
“The tight siege stops civil defence equipment from getting in,” says one.
They added: “So we are taking much longer to respond to these events. Time is a factor in getting these people out. So we call immediately for the necessary equipment to be allowed in for the civil defence to use.”
The IDF say they are investigating the circumstances around the Jundia family as a result of our enquiries.
In relation to the access of heavy equipment into Gaza, they say they work closely with international aid organisations to enable the delivery of humanitarian activities in accordance with international law.
The last contact Jundia had from beneath the rubble was a phone call from his uncle Ziad, three days after the strike.
“The line was open for 25 seconds then it went dead. We don’t know what happened. We tried to call, but there was no answer,” he says.
He and his family were displaced several times before they returned home to Shujaiyya – to Rafah in the south, then Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.
Along the way, Jundia lost one brother and a nephew to Israeli bombs.
“We were happy and all the family came back. We went back to our house. It was damaged, but we improvised and we lived in it. We have nothing to do with the resistance. We are not interested in wars. But we have been gravely harmed,” he says.