The cold reality for Afghans starting new lives in the UK

Thousands of former Afghan special forces soldiers are being brought to Britain following a campaign by The Independent.

- Holly Bancroft

The walls have been newly painted a bright white, and the floors are clean.

But despite it being a grey cold winter's day outside, all the windows in this two-bedroom flat in west London are wide open.

There is no visible mould, but Abdul's family, including his pregnant wife Aisha, have been struggling with their breathing because of damp in the property ever since they moved in in October. They have opened the windows in a desperate bid to get some fresh air into the flat.

Their 11-year-old son's asthma, which is usually controlled, has become much worse, says Abdul. When he struggled to breathe in one particular exacerbation a few weeks ago, Abdul rushed him to the emergency department at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, scared that his son's medication wasn't enough to keep him well in their new living conditions.

A former Afghan special forces soldier who fought alongside the British, Abdul had dreamt of the day he would be able to bring his family to the UK, and was overjoyed when it finally came in August this year.

He had served with an elite Afghan unit known as Afghan Territorial Force 444 - one of two units set up and paid by the British to work alongside the best of the UK armed forces. In the chaos of the West's withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, many of those who worked most closely with the UK were left behind, with dozens of allies killed, kidnapped or tortured by the Taliban.

While the Ministry of Defence (MoD) set up resettlement routes for those who had worked alongside the British, mistakes led to hundreds of applications for sanctuary from Afghans with credible links to special forces units being wrongly rejected.

The government has been undertaking a review of thousands of these applications after