A British old woman detained for months by the Taliban could die without access to medical care, alerted on Monday, July 21, five UN independent experts, who claim their release.
Peter Reynolds, 80, and his wife, Barbie, 75, who have lived in Afghanistan for 18 years, “have been arrested for more than five months” without any burden on them, these experts said.
In a press release, they explain that the two British citizens were stopped in particular “in a high security center for several months, then in underground cells, without daylight, before being transferred last week” to the General Directorate of Intelligence in Kabul.
“They can suffer irreparable damage”
“His physical and mental health is deteriorating rapidly. Without access to adequate medical care, they run the risk of irreparable damage or even death,” experts said, including special reporters against torture, Alice Jill Edwards and the special sport on extrajudicial executions, Morris Tidball-Binz.
“Our first request is your immediate transfer to a civil hospital to be treated there,” they said.
According to experts, Peter Reynolds needs drugs for the heart after a transient ischemic accident in 2023. Since his arrest, he has suffered two eye infections and suffers intermittent tremors in the head and left arm. Recently it was bothered.
His wife suffers from anemia. His condition is “weak and fragile” and pointed out suffering feet.
“We do not see any reason that justifies the arrest of this nursing pair and we have requested an immediate review of the reasons for their arrest,” experts said, which are ordered by the UN Human Rights Council but that are not expressed in the name of the organization.
The couple arrested with a friend and a translator
According to The Guardian, the four children of the couple launched a call on Sunday so that their parents were released “before it was too late.”
The British couple, who married Kabul in 1970, has administered education programs in Afghanistan since 2009. They were arrested on February 1 along with her friend but American Faye Hall and her Afghan translator, while returning to the province of Bamiyan west of Kabul.
Faye Hall, who had been arrested for alleged possession of an unauthorized drone, was released at the end of March.
Dozens of foreigners have been arrested by the Taliban authorities since their return in command in August 2021 after the withdrawal of US forces.
Source: BFM TV
