Longest-serving interpreter safe here with family
JUST last week Ricky and his family were terrified, hiding from the Taliban in a Kabul suburb listening to bursts of gunfire and intermittent bomb blasts.
But last night the interpreter, his wife, three sons and two daughters were able to start planning for a new life from the safety of a Manchester quarantine hotel.
The 38-year-old said: ‘We have gone from many dark years of being frightened, wondering if the next attack would be aimed at us or if we would return when we went outside to being, and feeling, safe.
‘It is a wonderful feeling but it is still hard to believe it is really true.’
Ricky is the longest serving translator working for British forces – a veteran of 18 years. Three years ago he was ambushed by two suspected Taliban gunmen as he returned home and his vehicle was hit by four bullets. He first applied for relocation to the UK in 2017 only to be turned down – the first of several rejections before finally being accepted in December last year.
And now he has joined dozens of interpreters and their families in coming to Britain – among 1,400 Afghans to have arrived since the third week of June.
Nine ‘Freedom Flights’ – chartered planes bringing Afghans to safety in the UK – have so far arrived, with a further 14 planned.
On Saturday the Daily Mail reported a ‘triple victory’ on translators with Defence Secretary Ben Wallace confirming interpreters in ‘third countries’ as well as those who worked with Special Forces have now been approved for sanctuary, while translators with contentious applications will have their cases re-assessed.
Ricky’s arrival is a significant victory for the Mail which began calling for his rescue four years ago. He said: ‘I would like to thank you [the Mail] because you told the British people what was happening with the interpreters who risked their lives.’
A Government spokesman said Britain’s Afghan relocation policy was ‘one of the most generous in the world’, adding: ‘Nobody’s life should be put at risk because they supported the UK Government in Afghanistan.’