If I take my family back the Taliban could kill us
MOHAMMAD Hares Walizada served in battle with the British Army from 2009 until 2013.
As a battle-group interpreter he deployed on the frontline in dangerous towns in Helmand Province.
The 27-year-old married father said that, as an unarmed civilian, his life was constantly at risk as he interpreted Taliban communications.
In 2013 he was then promoted to a cultural adviser and head of local employees at Camp Bastion in the province, before being made redundant by the Army in September 2014.
He qualified for the Government’s
relocation scheme and Mr Hares, who was born in Kabul, said he believed he was allowed into the UK permanently.
But in September 2015 he was given a visa lasting only five years.
He arrived in Britain in January 2016 with his wife, 20, and they live in Manchester with their nine-month-old baby Sineen, while Mr Hares works for a payroll firm. But, with their visa due to expire in September 2020, he contacted the Home Office to be told he would have to reapply and pay fees of £2,3 9 each for him and his wife, plus another £900 for his daughter. He said: ‘If I can’t afford the fees even if I can get a visa then I won’t be able to apply and I will technically be illegal.
‘Then I have two options either to go back to my country and risk our lives or find the money.’
Mr Hares set up the Sulha Network representing interpreters in the same situation with former Captain Ed Aitken, who worked with him in Afghanistan.
Captain Aitken, who met Mr Hares again in Manchester in 2016, said: ‘He told me he was so happy that his daughter was growing up and did not know the sound of the explosions in Kabul.’