The Sunday Times February 13, 2022 17
Kabul
PAKISTAN
IRAN
Bamiyan
Herat
AFGHANISTAN
TA JIK ISTAN
Wakhan
CorridorCHINA
200 milesincidents daily,”
he says. He
recently saw
a video
of an elderly
Ismaili man
in Badakhshan
being “bullied
and beaten by the
Taliban”. Mohammed is
keeping a low profile, only
going out to buy essentials.
Willcox estimates that there
are about 100 tourism workers
who could be targeted by the
Taliban because of their links
with international entities.
Untamed Borders has joined
several other companies —
including Secret Compass and
Soviet Tours — in launching
an appeal to fund their
transportation to safe areas,
support their resettlement and
daily living costs, and provide
sponsorship for refugee visas.
Abdullah, who beganHe believes
that he was
persecuted
because he
had previously
worked for
the Afghan
government.
The guesthouse that
Bashir used to manage closed
recently, having run for more
than ten years, regularly
hosting tourists. It employed
more than 20 people. “It is
extremely hard for them — and
for me — right now,” he says. “I
am jobless. Whatever savings
I had I’ve shared with my
colleagues and close friends.”
He knows people who can’t
afford to eat. According to the
UN World Food Programme,
22.8 million people — or more
than half the population —
face acute food insecurity.
Although Mohammed has
received no direct threats, he
says that there are people who
know about his work and may
report him to the Taliban. He
is also a member of the Ismaili
ethno-religious minority,
which belongs to the Shia
branch of Islam and has faced
oppression for centuries. The
majority of Afghans, including
the Taliban, are Sunni Muslims.
“Publicly there are no cases
of persecution, although we
get reports and videos of suchTourism in
Afghanistan
peaked in the
1970s at 90,000
a year
because he hadn’t worked for
foreign governments it was
difficult to prove that he was
at risk. “Still I am trying, and
other friends from abroad are
also trying to get me a visa,”
he says. In the meantime the
only work he can find is as a
fixer for journalists.
Fatima Haidari, the
country’s first female tour
guide, was one of only a
handful of tourism workers
who managed to escape in the
days after the Taliban retook
power. She had worked as a
freelance tour guide since
January 2020 — despite the
protestations of her family —
showing tourists sights such
as the Central Blue Mosque in
her home city of Herat.
“I was most happy about
connecting Afghanistan to
the world; I could show the
country’s positive sides from
the perspective of a woman,”
she says from northern Italy,
where she is claiming asylum.
Now safe, she dreams of
training young women to
follow in her footsteps as a
tour guide. “It will take time,
but I can adapt,” she says. “I
fought for those achievements
in Afghanistan.”Some names and identifiable
details have been changed.
To donate see fundly.comworking as a tour guide in
2015, is among those who have
benefited. His favourite place
to show visitors was Bamiyan
in central Afghanistan — where
the Taliban destroyed two
6th-century Buddha statues
in 2001 — and he fears violent
reprisals. “We have put our
lives in danger to keep
travellers safe here and show
them our country,” he says.
He is worried because people
know him through social
media and he was detained
by the Taliban just after the
most recent fall of Kabul.
Afghanistan is “like a
prison”, he says. “[The
Taliban] are very brutal.”
Many women remain in
hiding, while others have
been found dead, their
bodies riddled with bullets,
after being taken by the group.
The company for which
Abdullah worked tried to get
him on the evacuation list, butFatima Haidari, far
left, worked as a
guide at the Central
Blue Mosque in
Herat, above. The
site of the destroyed
Buddha statues, left,
and Band-e Amir,
top, in BamiyanROBERT HARDING, FRANÇOIS-OLIVIER DOMMERGUES/ALAMY; HADI ZAHER/GETTY IMAGES