Afghan Heroes Beg To Enter UK As Russia Offers Way Out

Afghans forced into hiding in Iran after fighting shoulder-toshoulder with UK troops against the Taliban have urged Sir Keir Starmer to bring them to safety urgently after months of delays.

- HOLLY BANCROFT & MAY BULMAN

Members of two Afghan special forces units, which were set up, trained and funded by the British, are living in desperation while they wait on a Ministry of Defence review of their relocation applications, asking: “How can we wait like this?”

The government announced in February that it would review around 2,000 applications from Afghans with credible links to these units, after an investigation by The Independent with newsroom Lighthouse Reports revealed that many were being wrongly refused sanctuary.

While ministers have started to sign off new decisions, many of these highly trained soldiers are still living in fear for their lives in Afghanistan, or barely able to feed themselves or their families in Iran.

Mahibullah feels a pang of guilt every evening when he sees his children go hungry. The family of 11 cram together in their tiny, one-room apartment in Iran, and make do with the scraps of food he has managed to get hold of that day with the small amount of money he makes from odd factory jobs. His children aren’t allowed to go to school. “We are alive, but not living,” he says wearily.

The family fled to Iran nearly two-and-a-half years ago after Mahibullah became a Taliban target for working with the British military in a specialist unit called Commando Force 333 (CF333). He had hoped they would be evacuated to safety under the UK government’s scheme for Afghans who served alongside British soldiers, known as the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (Arap) – but his application was denied in 2022.