Now read Yama’s story, Mr Raab, and tell us we’ve done everything we can to save the translators who gave so much for Britain
A FORMER frontline interpreter was in tears when he spoke to the Mail yesterday from a secret location in Kabul: angry, desperate and terrified.
One hour earlier, Yama had received an email from the British. Without warning, he was told – in stark officialise – he no longer qualified for sanctuary.
It was a bolt from the blue. The British had granted him permission to come to the UK eight months ago, and he and his disabled wife Parwana, 30, had been waiting for the call to leave.
He has spent months playing cat and mouse with the Taliban, growing a traditional beard to blend in, and, as they advanced on the capital, he has changed homes three times. On one short journey this week, he risked 12 checkpoints.
The 31-year-old ex-translator had been desperately trying to get to the airport and on to a flight with his wife.
Now, he feels abandoned by the country he served so faithfully.
His bleak message: ‘I know I am going to be killed – there is no other way. I am very desperate.’
No wonder. This week, he had to flee his latest hiding place as Taliban fighters went door-to-door.
‘We just heard noises... and suddenly one of our female neighbours knocked on our door and explained about the searches by the Taliban group,’ he said.
‘Scared, I put on my clothes and ran from my home... They went door-to-door, asking about weapons, vehicles and the documents. They were shouting and entering homes after knocking very strongly. Everyone just panicked.’
He said he fled to a relative’s house four miles away and sent his wife to her parents’ home.
And then, yesterday morning, he received the devastating news from the Home Office.
The former translator said: ‘I could not believe it. We are heartbroken, devastated and do not understand this. It is so cruel and unjust. The Taliban is hunting me by name because of my work for the British forces.
‘One minute, we are anxiously waiting for a call from the British Afghan team asking us to go to the airport to fly to the UK, and the next – without any explanation or justification – we are told we are being left behind to the revenge of the Taliban.
‘I am so angry but I am also frightened. Why did they build up our hopes and then crush us just as the Taliban is growing nearer?’ The couple say they are especially vulnerable because Parwana is disabled in her legs – the result of shrapnel from a Taliban mortar when she was five – and has enjoyed a high-profile international career as a powerlifter, a type of competitive weightlifter.
She has competed for Afghanistan around the world and was selected to compete at the Paralympics in Tokyo. But because of the worsening situation, she put her athletic career on hold.
Yama said: ‘She has proudly represented her country many times as a disabled woman who uses a wheelchair. This alone would make her a target of the Taliban even without me being a translator for their enemy.’
He continued: ‘We desperately try to stay a step ahead of the Taliban but it is difficult now that so many of their men are arriving and they have spies everywhere, even in my wife’s family.
‘We have waited and waited for relocation, answered many questions and completed many forms but it has taken so long that the Taliban has arrived.’
He added: ‘We are in shock and do not know what to do.’
Yama, who spent three years in Helmand between 2010 and 2013, said he was forced to resign after members of Parwana’s family warned him he would be punished for working for the British forces.
He says he is baffled as to why he has been refused sanctuary. He wonders if it is because some of his relatives are Taliban. One, he said, attacked him with a knife for his translator work.
For its part, the Government sounds as if it will not budge. Asked about the case, it said in a statement: ‘We are doing everything we can to resettle Afghan nationals but we will not compromise on security.
‘We have thorough checks across Government and world-class intelligence agencies. If someone is assessed as presenting a national security risk to this country, we will take action.’
But this statement fails to address the fact that Yama had already been accepted in December, only for the invitation to be snatched away at the eleventh hour – with, says the ex-translator, possibly fatal consequences.
‘I know I am going to be killed’