<figure><img width="1200" height="574" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141144/636d00c99c7e80680e0a35f7jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>(From right) Mohamad Arif Ahamadi, his wife Safika and sons Siar and Zuber. Photos: MUKESH POKHREL</figcaption></figure>Ever since the most recent Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, they had been fleeing Kandahar and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/kathmandus-little-kabul/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kabul to Kathmandu</a> in the hope of third-country asylum.  They have been waiting in limbo for years, and have been watching the shocking images from Kabul airport of their compatriots trying to escape the Taliban. This has dashed their hopes of ever returning to their homeland, but raised the prospect of a speedier asylum process. Humayun Shahzad, an Afghan refugee living in Kathmandu, has not been able to sleep ever since the Taliban began their <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/afghanistan-abandoned/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">rapid advance across Afghanistan last month</a> that led to the collapse of the Afghan government.  “I have been watching what is happening in Afghanistan, and thinking about our friends and family still there,” says Shahzad, who has been spending sleepless nights ever since the Taliban’s rapid takeover and the collapse of the Afghan government. “On the one hand, I have had to constantly think about how I will manage to support my family without a job here in Nepal, on the other there is also the worry about what the Taliban will do to my country,” Shahzad adds.  Like dozens of other Afghan families languishing in Kathmandu, Shahzad fled first to India and then came to Kathmandu, hoping it would be easier to apply for asylum here.  <a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19109#.YTLJty2B3-Z" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Taliban forces</a> had vastly weakened in the first six years after the US-occupied Afghanistan. However, the militants then began to tighten their stranglehold in and around rural Afghanan, leaving many with the choice of either following along, or escaping their harsh rule.  Shahzad was operating a successful photography business in Grishk district in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, and chose the latter. He took his family and flew to Delhi, and then to  Kathmandu in 2014. C R Ahmed had never imagined that he would one day have to flee the country that he had been born and raised in. He owned a thriving gold shop in Kandahar, and lived happily with his family through all the years of Soviet occupation, the mujahideen war, the American bombings. But when the Taliban took over for the first time more than two decades ago, he left. "The Taliban ruined Afghanistan,” says Ahmed. “They will ruin it again.” The Taliban grew out of the US-backed mujahideen fighters who drove out the Soviet military in the 1990s. They became radicalised after coming to power, and were finally banished to the fringes after the US occupied Afghanistan in 2001 following the 11 September attacks — exactly 20 years this week. The Americans retaliated against al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and initiated a state-building process with elections and governments that they backed. But corruption and mismanagement allowed the Taliban to regroup, conduct horrendous terrorist attacks against civilians and inflict heavy casualties on US and NATO forces. The West finally lost its will to fight, and US forces abruptly left Afghanistan, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/who-will-rescue-nepalis-from-afghanistan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">allowing the Taliban to take rapid control</a>. Provincial capitals fell one by one, as Afghan forces either surrendered or were routed.  The whole of August, the world witnessed heart-wrenching scenes of thousands of Afghans flocking to Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, clinging to the undercarriage of aircrafts in an attempt to flee the return of the Taliban. At the time of their departure, American and coalition forces had evacuated more than 122,000 of their nationals, diplomats, and Afghan allies from Kabul. But not everyone made it out when the last US Air Force C-17 flew out on 31 August.  The Afghan refugees in Nepal left long before the recent upheavals, but say they escaped because they knew what was coming if the Taliban took over. Zubair Ahmed recalls the Taliban’s oppressive regime making it impossible for Afghans to continue to live in the country of their birth. "Many of us Afghans wanted to educate our children, especially our daughters, and see them go on to become doctors and professionals, but the Taliban would not allow it,” says Zubair Ahmed. “And women were not allowed to leave the house. We saw what the Taliban did 20 years ago, we know what they are capable of.” With the Taliban taking control of Afghanistan once again, the doors have all but closed on the chances of Afghans in Nepal ever returning home. But life here in Nepal, while certainly safer, has not been easy at all — especially with already meagre <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-real-cost-of-nepals-second-wave/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">employment opportunities drying up due to the Covid-19 pandemic</a>. <figure><img width="1100" height="610" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141144/636d00cc9c7e80680e0a35f8jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Murtuza Jaffrey, 37, owned and operated a welding shop in Kandahar Province, but was forced to flee his home with his family after the Taliban threatened him for doing welding jobs for the American military. When they fled Afghanistan, his family was forced to separate. Jaffrey and his four children came to Nepal via India. Meanwhile, his mother and four siblings went to Iran.For Jaffery, the years in Kathmandu have been a constant struggle for survival. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/author/soniaawale/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The pandemic</a>, however, has made it especially difficult— he is now without a job, and has not been able to pay his rent for two months. Moreover, the Rs18,000 annual grant that the UNHCR provided for each of his children’s education has stopped in the last two years.  Like Jaffrey, Mohammad Arif Ahmadi operated a successful business in Kandahar and was contracted to install bars on the doors and windows of buildings for the Americans. “The work was good, but the Taliban would not let us live in peace, they threatened to kill me for helping the Americans,” recalls Ahmadi, who believes that Afghanistan has fallen back into the hands of “terrorists” following the Taliban victory. Unable to live in constant fear for his life, Ahmadi, his wife and four sons decided to leave Afghanistan and come to Kathmandu seven years ago. The family has been struggling to make ends meet ever since. The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/how-nepal-must-prepare-for-3rd-covid-wave/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pandemic-induced closures</a> have made it worse for the family, four of whom worked at various grill and welding shops in Kathmandu. “We do fine as long as we can find work,” says Sophika Ahmadi, “But when the jobs dry up, we are not even able to feed ourselves for the day.”For all the Afghans struggling to get through every day in Kathmandu, the journey from <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-and-the-talibans-second-coming/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Afghanistan to Nepal</a> has been long and painful. A few, like Ahmadi and Jaffrey, paid traffickers as much as $2,000 for each family member to come to Nepal — a country unfamiliar to them in terms of language, culture and geography.Similarly, Humayun Shahzad came to Kathmandu after a broker he met in Delhi convinced him to move to Nepal, which he described as a beautiful country where he could find better opportunities. The broker charged Shahzad’s nine-member family $1,000 per person just to come from New Delhi to Kathmandu. They used up all their savings from selling their possessions in Afghanistan for the trip.“We had thought the price was worth it because Nepal was a faraway place, but the broker brought us here within two days,” Seven years later, his family is still here, and struggling to stay afloat.Shahzad was convinced to come to Kathmandu by brokers who assured him that the UN refugee agency UNHCR in Nepal would provide him with the necessary support. But the reality in Nepal has been vastly different, and Afghans living in Nepal believe that the UNHCR has <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/elderly-left-in-bhutan-refugee-camp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">abandoned refugees like them</a>.Now, Afghans living in Nepal have one main demand, that they be compensated for their time living in Nepal, and be resettled in third countries. Additionally, the refugees have also been imploring the Nepal government to exempt them from having to pay the fines for staying in Nepal without a visa.Without any meaningful support from UNHCR, and running out of money, the future for Afghan refugees in Nepal looks bleak.For Murtuza Jaffrey, circumstances here have worsened to the point that he is considering going back to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/bring-us-home-says-nepali-in-kabul/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Afghanistan</a>, and taking his chances with the Taliban, a sentiment he says other Afghans in Kathmandu echo.“If we return to Afghanistan, the Taliban will kill us, and that will be it,” says Jaffrey. “Here, we feel like we are dying day by day.”

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Afghans in Nepal await resettlement

<figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd7a9c7e80680e0a0be7jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Aunohita Mojumdar on right talking to farmers in a field in the village of Haibat Khel in Parwan province in 2008. Photo: ANNE FEENSTRA</figcaption></figure>Gut-wrenching images and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/bring-us-home-says-nepali-in-kabul/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">stories</a> have flooded the media sphere over the last few days. Hundreds flocking to the airport, clinging to the undercarriage of aircraft in desperation,<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/call-to-evacuate-afghan-journalists/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> journalists in hiding</a> or seeking visas to leave, people in streets and in camps fleeing the violence that has preceded the fall of province after province to the Taliban. The rapidity with which the Taliban have been able to take control over the entire country has surprised everyone including the Taliban themselves. However, while the speed may not have been foreseen, the collapse of the government had seemed inevitable for some time, especially after the steps taken by the US in rapid succession since the Doha deal they struck with the Taliban in 2020. Ironically called the ‘Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan’, the deal ensured the unconditional withdrawal of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-rome-statute-and-the-hague/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">American troops</a>. Desperate to leave, the US administration acceded to the Taliban insistence of talks without the presence of the elected Afghan government -- thus de-legitimising the leadership that President Joe Biden is today blaming for the collapse of the government.So what of the 20 years of international support? The entire nation-building project led by the Americans, regardless of what President Joe Biden now says, was based on an American view of what a liberated Afghanistan and Afghans should look and sound like, often with little understanding of the ground reality. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-and-the-talibans-second-coming/">Nepal and the Taliban’s second coming</a>, Kanak Mani DixitUnfortunately, American military and financial power outstripped that of other nations several times over and coupled with the belief in American Exceptionalism this ensured their overweening dominance. More nuanced approaches were run rough-shod and complex perspectives that could address the complicated realities were jettisoned in favour of the black-and-white you ‘are with us or against us’ approach. While there is much to blame on the Afghan government and the leaders, it is worth looking at how the security paradigm and the political leadership were instituted. In the initial period following the 2001 invasion, the US prevented the expansion of NATO in order to keep complete control of the security sphere, and subsequently blocked all attempts at allowing even the negotiated surrender of the Taliban leadership, thus driving them underground. Over the years, international forces killed a large number of civilians, an unacceptably high rate of ‘collateral damage’ that turned a significant portion of the Afghan population against them as well as against the Afghan government they were supporting. While ‘introducing democracy’ to Afghans, the US railroaded Afghans into accepting a governance structure that concentrated all powers in the presidency -- far more extreme than any presidential style of governance in existence -- and also forced an electoral system that kept out political parties -- the building blocks of any democratic polity.  <figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd7c9c7e80680e0a0be8jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Leaders of militias were rearmed and empowered despite the fact that some of them had a track record of extreme brutality and predation on the local population. In later years, groups directly under the control of the US --and outside the ambit of the local army and police forces -- were armed, often with little checks and control resulting in more for violence against civilians. Finally, in order to meet an artificial timetable of ‘Afghan owned’ security, an Afghan army was built in a hurry despite obvious evidence of its weaknesses: the lack of adequate command and control structures, and inadequate training. Reports of high rates of recidivism, and drug addiction in the ranks were ignored in pursuit of the goal of filling the numbers. Over the years the Taliban regrouped and began to expand its footprint, enabled in some measure, by local discontent, access to safe spaces across the Pakistan border and the ‘live and let live’ deals struck in many areas.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/farewell-danish/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Farewell, Danish</a>, Navesh ChitrakarIn the past several years large parts of the country have been under the control of the Taliban or only nominally under the control of the government. In many areas, deals had been brokered for a holding pattern whereby neither side would engage in operations, thus leaving the local population the space to lead relatively peaceful lives. All of this was known to the US administration as it prepared to leave. What they had not counted on perhaps was the speed with which the government would fall. A more convenient gap would have allowed them to distance themselves from the disastrous political fallout a little better, and made their efforts to gas-light an entire country appear a little more tenable.As it is, the rapidity of events has left the emperor with no clothes, its usurpation of Afghan airspace to remove its own citizens while holding Afghan civilians at bay at gunpoint is now the last lingering image.What nextThe uncertainty that has come with the Taliban taking power is fearful, and the fears very real. But the truth is that no one yet knows what kind of governance will emerge under Taliban 2.0 Will women be allowed in the public space? Will they have to adopt diktats on a dress code that will force them back into burkha? Will independent media be allowed to function? Will the Taliban seek to replicate the image of the state that they created between 1996 and 2001 when they controlled almost the entire country? Will they, as they have stated publicly, respect the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/i-may-not-be-alive-by-the-time-i-am-evacuated/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">rights of women </a> ncluding their right to education? Already these rights are being caveated by talk of ‘within Islamic law’ which is open to wide interpretation. What will the Taliban attitude be towards the minorities, especially the Shi’a Hazara communities some of which were massacred when they were last in power? <figure><img width="480" height="640" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd7f9c7e80680e0a0be9jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>For a section of the media, ‘the terrorists have arrived’. And while the desperate images from the airport tell an important part of the story about the arrival of the Taliban in power they do not tell it in its entirety. Most Afghans did not want the return of the Taliban, but many urban, educated Afghans used to freedoms are staying on, deliberately and consciously, willing to consider and find ways and means of navigating the new realities. They are willing to unpick the issues and tackle them to try and create the space for living their lives, and all of us should be doing that too rather than treating Afghanistan and its people as a lost nation, or the situation as ‘game over’. The Americans have abandoned Afghanistan and the Afghans. It is time we in the region abandon the American approach towards Afghanistan as a nation to be lost or won, to be inducted into the empire of allies or rejected as an ‘enemy’ country.With the fall of the Afghan government and the takeover by the Taliban, much of the strategic discourse in the national media of the neighbouring countries has been an accounting of winners and losers, a zero-sum game that tallies the increasing influence of one country and the reduction of another’s. One popular narrative suggests that the return of the Taliban will lead to an Afghanistan-China-Pakistan nexus and that India has lost out.It might be more pertinent from the viewpoint of strategic policy to look not just at the convergence of interests but also at the divergences. China would like to see stability that will allow it economic engagement with Afghanistan. It has already invested heavily in the country’s mineral wealth and has been waiting to reap it. Neither China nor Russia would like to see unrest on their borders/near borders. China’s boundary with Afghanistan borders Xinjiang, and China has been critical of the way the US has withdrawn troops rather than happy about the exit of its strategic competitor. Russia has been deeply concerned about the problem of drugs flowing from Afghanistan, and even collaborated with the US in counternarcotics measures. Iran and Pakistan will both bear the brunt of the exodus of refugees from Afghanistan and while Pakistan has provided safe sanctuary to the Taliban, allowing them to grow in strength and capability from the safe havens, the Taliban in power in Afghanistan may make it more difficult to operate against their own home-grown terror networks. <figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd819c7e80680e0a0beajpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd849c7e80680e0a0bebjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Until now, regional political power has been exercised at the behest of the Americans with countries it considers to be inimical kept out of the way. That template will have broken down with the American departure, and political change in Kabul. But a regional approach based on common interests, short, medium and long-term can be found only if the countries do not look for the zero-sum approach. And, what about all of us in the region? Can we leave it to our governments? ***Afghans and Afghanistan are us“We are not Americans,” the young Afghan man told me angrily, and, I thought, patronisingly. It was 2004 in Kabul and we were in the middle of a fierce debate on independence of media and women’s rights, the two issues which have come to the fore in the aftermath of the Taliban takeover of Kabul. The young man, R, was insistent that all this talk of rights was an American imposed program, alien to the culture of Afghanistan. “Nor am I American,” I answered, emphasising that my footprint was firmly in the region. My shift to a regional paradigm changed the tone of the conversation that day, and we were able to have a discussion based on substance rather than on stereotypes. I was to find this again and again as I navigated through the complex space of a country emerging from years of isolation, one, which seemed, then, to be on the brink of a more hopeful future. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepali-repatriation-from-kabul-starts/">Nepali repatriation from Kabul starts</a>, Nepali Times <figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd879c7e80680e0a0becjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>To me it seemed as though the complexities of the country and the opportunities, its strengths and its problems mirrored ours, different certainly in scale and acuteness but nonetheless familiar and tractable. The problems facing Afghan women had not disappeared with the removal of the Taliban. Some areas experienced much greater freedom, and some faced more problems. The most brutal interpretation of Sharia was gone, but it still took presidential diktat to save an Afghan from execution for perceived blasphemy. Over the eight years that I lived there, I also saw a growing erosion of support for women’s rights. An Afghan woman activist was denied appointment as a minister by the parliament because her work for safe houses for women was considered immoral. Women were still being incarcerated in Pul-e-Charkhi prison outside Kabul for the crime of running away from abusive homes. They were guilty since, as possessions of the family, they were considered to have committed a theft against their family by running away. Women ran radio stations and became TV anchors. In some places they were also forced to leave the radio stations they had joined as their voices on air were considered unbecoming by their families. The space which had opened up after the removal of the Taliban was full of possibilities. It was also full of struggle. It also felt familiar, the way it did in many parts of India where many women like me had many more rights than others did. It felt familiar the way it did in the villages of Haryana where I had reported from homes where Hindu women observed deep purdah as many Afghan women continued to do. In Kabul I wore the same head covering I had worn in many villages in India on my reporting trips and received some lectures from western women journalists on how I was supposed to show the way to Afghan women by discarding it. When some of the women’s rights started being eroded under the growing clout of the ultra-conservative militia leaders they had put in power, western diplomats started to talk about cultural relativity. I found myself asserting that I came from a similar culture but that the rights to life, liberty and safety were neither relative nor negotiable. The reigning narrative of the Taliban was one of oppression of religious minorities. Except that in the popular narrative it was oppression of non-Muslim minorities - the Hindus and Sikhs. What I found in Afghanistan was different. One of the first de rigueur interviews as an Indian journalist was with the leaders of the Sikh community in Kabul’s Karte Parwan area.  <figure><img width="500" height="668" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd8a9c7e80680e0a0bedjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The Sikh leader complained about the deterioration of security after the departure of the Taliban. They said their religious rights had not been impinged upon by the Taliban whose focus was on making Muslims observant of all the religious practices. I thought about that today when I heard the Indian government had decided to discriminate on religious grounds, and offered help only to the Hindus and Sikhs of Afghanistan. I thought about the outcry over independent media in Afghanistan today when I read about journalists in Srinagar being thrashed while reporting on the muharram procession.I knew about the outrage of the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. When I travelled to Bamiyan valley I also saw the areas where communities of Hazaras had been massacred around the same time, with much less international comment. I had gone to live in Afghanistan in 2003. In 2002 I had marched in the streets of Delhi and organised meetings after the state-assisted massacres of Muslims in Gujarat. I would not have been working in Afghanistan had the Taliban still been there and I could see the young Afghans I worked with and met amazed at the opportunities.They would show me their ID cards from the Taliban times, long bearded and morose, laughing at how much older they had looked then – but it also felt familiar, like the struggles of much of our region against femicide and infanticide, against horrific dowry deaths and religious discrimination, against the use of state power to brutal ends. It didn’t feel like another planet the way it seemed to do to some westerners. The truth is that long before the Americans abandoned Afghanistan, we in the region, had relinquished our claims to a shared kinship based on geography, history and culture, looking at the country as a mutation of our worst fears, and one can draw a line, perhaps not straight, but jagged, from there to what we see today. But now, perhaps, it is time. It is time we in the region not leave it to our governments, and to claim Afghanistan and Afghans as one of us.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/who-will-rescue-nepalis-from-afghanistan/"> Who will rescue Nepalis from Afghanistan?</a>Aunohita Mojumdar is a Southasian journalist. She lived and worked in Kabul for 8 years.

Afghanistan abandoned

<figure><img width="1914" height="1078" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd739c7e80680e0a0be5jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>TOLOnews female presenter Beheshta Arghand interviewing Taliban spokesperson Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad on 17 August. Photo: TOLONews</figcaption></figure>Steven Butler describes it as “mass panic.” As the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator has been fielding “hundreds and hundreds” of daily pleas from journalists asking for help to flee the country.Butler, along with CPJ Asia research associate Sonali Dhawan and the organisation’s Emergencies team, are now in the process of vetting those requests.Many Afghan journalists told CPJ they are too afraid to speak on the record. To get a picture of what’s happening on the ground, I spoke to Butler and Dhawan via video about what they have learned. Their interview has been edited for length and clarity.CPJ contacted Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid for comment via messaging app but received no response. CPJ also emailed the US State Department for comment but received no response; several calls to the US military failed to connect.When did CPJ begin getting requests for help from Afghan journalists?Butler: The requests for help from journalists who wanted to leave Afghanistan because they saw the Taliban coming started early this year. It was a trickle at the time and then it started to crescendo in July and increased by early August.We are getting hundreds and hundreds of requests for help every day now. Many of them are journalists and some of them are not journalists, they are just trying to find a way out. It has completely flooded our system. We are doing the best we can. We have four people working on analysing and looking into individual cases.We value our reputation for thorough documentation on everything we do and are applying our same standard to this — we are trying to document the cases as the best we can, because we are recommending them to the US government for emergency evacuation.What can you tell us about the <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=tAXPZ997p8VyLOXlEG5WpXOYJYccbznnQXx7atpHJ0Y9PHCkdDZJCw" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3DtAXPZ997p8VyLOXlEG5WpXOYJYccbznnQXx7atpHJ0Y9PHCkdDZJCw&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828623000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGCqxZ-wUJ8YMOcX2o7uKDtOES31w">chaotic scenes</a> at the airport and what it means for journalists?Butler: As of Tuesday the area has been secured and there is a perimeter. Anytime you have a military perimeter you have a problem, because there is an outside and there is an inside, and the outside is going to be controlled by the Taliban in one way or another, so the challenge has been to figure out how to get people through an insecure situation on the streets of Kabul, how to get them checked in through this military perimeter including additional checks by the U.S. military, and then get them on to flights. We have had people that have failed to get through.Why are Afghan journalists so desperate to leave?Butler: As the Taliban have extended their control over the provinces, we have seen them close down media outfits and <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=3fUbZQcSQYFqWpL-dwGEB-4MS14XqK8R6sw7iAugpFl_CbEaiXS6YQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3D3fUbZQcSQYFqWpL-dwGEB-4MS14XqK8R6sw7iAugpFl_CbEaiXS6YQ&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH3U94F5cWgjTNsQM6z8fSoaio6Tg">substitute their own personnel</a>. That hasn’t always led to people being killed or put in prison necessarily, but nonetheless journalists in Afghanistan are concerned that they are going to be pushed out of their profession — at the minimum. There are a number of very prominent journalists who have been harassed or chased by the Taliban and who have gone into hiding.What specific threats against journalists are you hearing about?Dhawan: Journalists who identify as women and ethnic minorities, specifically the Hazara, are at particular risk. The Hazara are an ethnic minority group who were <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=8nGSPAHFTNAWHtl_cNVp0Wa-r7pbWq-QxXfogE0UCQrF2RSlaPPrhA" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3D8nGSPAHFTNAWHtl_cNVp0Wa-r7pbWq-QxXfogE0UCQrF2RSlaPPrhA&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHqhW6Cirn_7bswdFN_VSBwiX3r5g">subject to mass killings</a> during the Taliban regime in the late 1990s. Journalists who have critically covered the Taliban are also terrified.I spoke to a journalist who was covering the Taliban takeover of a northern province — the Taliban came to his home after his reporting and they chased him out of the home. He ran away and they fired shots behind him and he managed to escape and get to Kabul. In the days after he escaped, he continued to receive calls that said, “We will find you.” Another prominent female journalist told me she received threatening calls in recent days from the Taliban that said, “Your time is over.”One other case that I want to highlight is the <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=lWRvPuQPHAoqNEAFyEtUoE88mQd6fvQj2SodOxze7cJIZrvXGVTtwQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3DlWRvPuQPHAoqNEAFyEtUoE88mQd6fvQj2SodOxze7cJIZrvXGVTtwQ&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEJ6eWfIffJYNj3zyqYdhc_iL5VZA">takeover</a> of the TOLO News compound, which is arguably the most prominent news channel in Afghanistan, a 24-hour channel that has covered a wide range of events and produced very critical coverage as part of this post-2001 media boom in Afghanistan.The Taliban have interestingly taken over the compound but are still allowing journalists to broadcast, and female journalists <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=2P3ZTjVgDO-LEkXCst0KZnzUc0h--kDD3PboiZx6h-dO7MriTtIB8A" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3D2P3ZTjVgDO-LEkXCst0KZnzUc0h--kDD3PboiZx6h-dO7MriTtIB8A&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNELg6vESSGc2YbiIVZ45Td__kwZyA">actually came back</a> on the air today. But we are seeing that a number of women and ethnic minority journalists are continuing to be threatened and the Taliban are showing up at their homes. <figure><img width="2186" height="1168" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd779c7e80680e0a0be6jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid addresses the first press conference in Kabul on 17 August following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. Photo: VOA News</figcaption></figure>What is the Taliban presence like at TOLO News? Butler: It looks like the Taliban have stationed armed people around the outside of the compound mainly. When they entered the premises [on August 16] they took away government issued weapons from <a href="https://tolonews.com/pa/afghanistan-174313" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TOLO</a> security but they allowed privately purchased weapons to remain.People who have watched the recent news broadcast say it is much toned down. The women are appearing with headscarves and more conservative dress. It is really unclear what is going to happen and why the Taliban have taken what seems to be a softer approach to TOLO compared to other radio or broadcast operations in the provinces.Are they trying to create a kind of appearance for the international community because TOLO is the best known? That is one possibility. Have they changed? They say they welcome press freedom and they are allowing women to operate in certain professional positions. I don’t think that people are taking what they say at face value. There is a lot of skepticism given the documented <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=Qm8S0bLLVJ7VWAdng49e6NWxgMgLeRu8YDifWhwF3EytCs8gDPhfBQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3DQm8S0bLLVJ7VWAdng49e6NWxgMgLeRu8YDifWhwF3EytCs8gDPhfBQ&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHgoIizaupuirfDUabrDxt4LdLRDg">history of brutality</a> by the Taliban.What specifically did the Taliban say about press freedom?Dhawan: The Taliban spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=GTQHMjGHuQmSkAGZG2mdL8hgbEKDt4Najm_LKtnaY6TDn_wbiLITRw" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3DGTQHMjGHuQmSkAGZG2mdL8hgbEKDt4Najm_LKtnaY6TDn_wbiLITRw&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFbY5li5mrgvjiJPdjQ-a5i3T2YNQ">conducted a press conference</a> and it really goes to show how brave Afghan journalists are because they were asking really tough questions, particularly about women in the country.He said the Taliban will allow all media outlets to continue their activities on three conditions, the first being there should be no broadcast that will contradict Islamic values, the second that they should be impartial, the third that no one should broadcast anything against the national interest. What we are seeing on the public platform is not matching the realities on the ground, because several radio stations in provinces, newspapers, and news outlets have <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=4Iz0EHIu5_DpwD3wuGtdDC-JY9cff80wRXnyIURB4EOTpk1LlP7ZbA" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3D4Iz0EHIu5_DpwD3wuGtdDC-JY9cff80wRXnyIURB4EOTpk1LlP7ZbA&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFhf6nM1WfeS3vuyfaHKJPHmVUVLQ">shut down amid fighting</a> as the Taliban took over.What is the Taliban trying to convey with these comments about press freedom?Butler: I would look on it pessimistically. Governments use this kind of double talk all over the region and all over the world to find ways to restrict what journalists do. It could well be that the Taliban have seen what other countries are doing in terms of rhetoric and are imitating it.It is a fact that democracy and press freedom are values that are universally spoken about but only rarely fully embraced. I think that we may see that pattern repeat itself in Afghanistan. Hopefully not. Hopefully they actually believe what they are saying, but we will have to see.You mentioned that female journalists are at particular risk. What else are you hearing from women?Dhawan: Most of the female journalists I have spoken to are absolutely terrified and have left their homes and gone into hiding somewhere. This is because there are several local reports of women journalists who have had their homes searched or the Taliban have showed up at their homes. And that is a particularly traumatising experience.A lot of women journalists who work in the fields of arts and culture or education are equally terrified. I know of several women journalists that work in these fields and are actively receiving threats from the Taliban. The Taliban did show up at the home of one very prominent journalist and said they would come back to her home and are looking for her.What other journalistic beats could draw the attention of the Taliban?Butler: Journalists have a history of their own work that lives on social media. I have been told that many journalists are now trying to scrub their social media profiles and deleting articles to try to hide that past. It is hard to say going forward what are going to be the sensitive issues, but journalists who were highly critical of the Taliban in the past could face a kind of reckoning.There’s a journalist I have been in touch with quite a lot. He and his wife were able to get out. But they are desperate now to get their families out. They say that the Taliban is going to go after their families because of their highly critical reporting on the Taliban in the past. I don’t know if that is going to be the case. I hope it is not. But they are convinced that their families will be killed.You described a “media boom” in Afghanistan after 2001. Can you say more about what is at risk of being lost at this moment?Dhawan: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/call-to-evacuate-afghan-journalists/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Afghan journalists</a> have done incredibly thoughtful and diligent work over the past 20 years to build a thriving press. They have braved the dangers of a military occupation, the presence of militant groups in the country and they have reported critically during these extremely dangerous times.The precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan has led to a complete collapse of the government and security forces, leaving journalists at severe risk of violence. There are simply no avenues for journalists to seek protection from authorities and they are essentially relying on their own community, their neighbours, and family members for protection at this point.As much as there is a need for journalists to get out of the country and CPJ is doing its best to do that work, journalists who want to remain in the country must be allowed to freely report on the extent of a humanitarian crisis that is about to occur.Butler: The international community totally failed to create a stable democracy, but they did succeed in creating a thriving press. There was a lot of money – US government money, USAID, private foundation money — to support and get these operations going because of course a free press is the absolute foundation of democracy. It stuck.We had a <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=C3l9uYxO5cc-ndmCYIfcz__Str-VhI1hJJ1tFo1n3uKsDH6ZjkofdQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3DC3l9uYxO5cc-ndmCYIfcz__Str-VhI1hJJ1tFo1n3uKsDH6ZjkofdQ&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGQBEOeZRNkd6kUMGfd-GWYKvqQQQ">case</a> a couple of weeks ago of people being forced into an interview with a Taliban local commander and made to promise that they would broadcast the interview. They came back and refused to do it because it wasn’t good journalism just to broadcast one side, so they went into hiding in Kabul.They got some of the lessons of what good journalism consists of and if you look at TOLO News, all these news outlets, a lot of it is quality journalism. And, of course, the international press relied heavily on local journalists. This is really a remarkable achievement and it would be a terrible shame for it to disappear completely. It would be wonderful for some of that spirit of press freedom and quality journalism and reporting to live on even if the previous government, the collapsed government of Afghanistan, no longer exists.Is there anything else that has struck you from this past week that you’d like to share?Dhawan: I was in contact with a journalist who is being actively threatened by the Taliban. She has been messaging me every day, afraid for her life. She is sheltered in a hotel right now and I told her we are working with the U.S. government to evacuate her and will continue to provide updates about her case as soon as we receive them. She said, “I may not be alive by that time.”Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/afghanistan-abandoned/"> Afganisthan abandoned</a>, Aunohita MojumdarNaomi Zeveloff is Features Editor at Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). This interview is reprinted from Inter Press Service.

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“I may not be alive by the time I am evacuated”

<figure><img width="1538" height="1020" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141128/636cfd2f9c7e80680e0a0bcejpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: RSS</figcaption></figure>There are anywhere between 2,000-15,000 <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/guarding-guards-afghanitan,3370" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepalis in Afghanistan</a> — most of them working for private military contractors as security guards.But there are also others whom labour recruiters have lured to Afghanistan promising jobs, and who are undocumented with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-military-migrant-economy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">jobs as security guards</a>.Read also: <a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/who-will-rescue-nepalis-from-afghanistan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Who will rescue Nepalis in Afghanistan?</a>The Nepal Embassy in New Delhi which is also accredited to Afghanistan has issued a statement asking Nepalis there to fill out form with contact details. The letter says workers should contact their recruiting agencies for flights out, even though all commercial flights to Kabul have been cancelled and only military evacuation flights are allowed. The Embassy statement also says the Nepal government has asked foreign embassies in Kabul to facilitate the evacuation of Nepalis. This is hardly likely since those governments have their hands full taking care of their own diplomats and nationals. <figure><img width="2020" height="1208" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141128/636cfd329c7e80680e0a0bcfjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>One Nepali who was reached by phone said he could hear gunfire on the streets outside the room where he was hiding. He did not want to be identified, and these are his words: "I came to <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2016/06/20/kabul-attack-condemned/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kabul</a> along with 18 other Nepalis in January 2020 after an agent in Kathmandu assured us of jobs here. All but three of us got jobs as security guards. We had paid Rs800,000 to the recruiter, but there is no job and no income here.A few months ago, some of us got <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/delta-variants-wake-up-call-for-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Covid-19</a>. We are hiding in this room, and luckily we have managed to get food to eat. I don’t know how many of us Nepalis there are here illegally, but I know of at least 150 other Nepalis in Kabul. We are all stranded.It is quite scary here in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/kathmandus-little-kabul/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kabul</a> at the moment. In fact, it is quite alarming. We can hear gunfire outside, and we heard that Taliban are on the streets. When the government troops see Talibans approaching they surrender immediately. There is also a lot of looting going on in broad daylight. People with guns are just robbing any richer person they see on the streets. We cannot venture out. Actually there isn’t that much of a problem for those with regular jobs as <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/GUEST-COLUMN/Nobodies-who-are-somebody,750" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">guards in security agencies</a>. They have been assured by their employers that they will somehow be evacuated to Nepal. In fact some are leaving tonight. But those like us who are undocumented do not have any support. We are desperate. Even our recruiting agency says it cannot take us back. We hear the Nepal government is trying to get Nepalis back. We are waiting for information. Our only hope is our own government."

“Bring us home,” says Nepali in Kabul

<figure><img width="1804" height="1310" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141128/636cfd269c7e80680e0a0bcbjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Ex-Nepal Army soldier Dhan Singh Dhami worked for a US defence contractor guarding the American Embassy in Kabul and assisted NATO forces in Helmand Province from 2004-2015. As the Taliban advances in Kabul, many other Nepalis in Afghanistan are at risk. Photo: NEPALI TIMES ARCHIVE</figcaption></figure>As the Taliban closes in on Kabul, international media attention on the rescue of Western diplomats has overshadowed the plight of thousands of international contract workers, including Nepalis, stranded there.There is no exact count of how many Nepalis workers there are in the war-torn country, but figures range from 2,000 to 15,000. The Nepal Embassy in New Delhi, which is also accredited to Afghanistan, says it is in touch with Nepalis there but seems to be laying its bets on Indian rescue flights.If flights are not possible, the only way out would be to negotiate a safe passage out for Nepalis through Pakistan. This will need coordination with the Pakistan government though the Nepal embassy in Islamabad. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/they-fail-we-fall/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">has not been able to expand his cabinet</a> even a month after his coalition government came to power, and there is no foreign minister. Preoccupied with politics and fighting the pandemic, the government has left the Nepalis in Afghanistan to their own devices.The opposition RPP is the only party so far that has called on the government to bring back Nepalis from Kabul. In a joint statement, the party’s leaders Kamal Thapa, Pashupati SJB Rana and Prakash Lohani on Sunday demanded that the government ‘ensure the safe return’ of Nepalis in Afghanistan.The end-game in Afghanistan has also coincided with Gurkha veterans in the British Army on hunger strike in London demanding equal pension with US soldiers. The RPP statement also expressed ‘solidarity with their struggle’.Besides Nepalis in the British Army who used to be deployed in Helmand and other provinces and were withdrawn, there are still many retired Nepali veterans from the British and Indian Armies, Singapore Police, as well as Nepal Army and Police who worked as <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/canada-settlement-with-families-of-nepali-guards/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">security guards for private defence contractors</a>.They worked as security guards for US and British defence contractors based in Kabul, Bagram Air Base, Kandahar and other military installations. While some third country workers left as the US withdrew from Bagram and other bases last month, there were still many Nepalis guarding Western embassies in Kabul. American and British troops arrived in Kabul this weekend to evacuate their diplomats and nationals, but the contract workers will have to find their own way out on very limited flights.Some Nepalis working for private contractors who managed to get out on some of the last flights are now stranded in Dubai, and cannot get home because of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/how-nepal-must-prepare-for-3rd-covid-wave/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Covid-19</a> restrictions in the UAE. <img width="640" height="751" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141128/636cfd299c7e80680e0a0bccjpeg.jpg" alt="">Many of the Nepalis worked for logistics companies like the Texas-Based Fluor or Turkish sub-contractors, while security guards were hired by the American private security firm DynCorp International, or the UK-based Aegis Defence.Aegis alone used to have more than 1,000 Nepalis on contract in Afghanistan before the latest Taliban offensive. Besides working as security guards, military escort and in demining operations, Nepalis have also been hired as construction workers, cooks, cleaners and as support staff. Many of the Nepalis who have managed to get out are said to be ready to be recruited again to go to other dangerous countries like Iraq. In 2004, 12 Nepalis working for a private contractor in Baghdad were massacred in cold blood by extremists, prompting the Nepal government to ban Nepalis from going to that country.Again, after the death of <a href="http://www.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2016/06/23/lives-of-our-brothers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2016/06/23/lives-of-our-brothers/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629113964967000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFo-y7ikyGPJ_LXBEsZqeaMUNgKEQ">13 Nepalis</a> guarding the Canadian Embassy in a <a href="http://www.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2016/06/20/kabul-attack-condemned/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2016/06/20/kabul-attack-condemned/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629113964967000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH3EX-wbri9zWNVZoysmf-N3m7rkA">terrorist attack in Kabul</a> in June 2016, the Nepal government had banned nationals from going to Afghanistan.However, a government fact-finding team visited Afghanistan later that year to assess the danger, and the Labour Ministry later lifted the ban and recommended measures, including approval of work contracts that included safety provisions. <figure><img width="2020" height="1208" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141128/636cfd2c9c7e80680e0a0bcdjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Nepal Embassy in New Delhi on Sunday 15 August released security advisory for Nepalis in Afghanistan.</figcaption></figure>Legally, Nepalis and other foreign workers in war zones like Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya fall between the cracks. The US and Britain get to lessen exposure to their own troops by hiring nationals from other countries through private contractors for much less money and fewer facilities. There is also no legal obligation during emergencies like this.The Nepali guards at the Canadian Embassy in Kabul in 2016, for example, were hired by Sabre International, a private contractor. Families of the security guards <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepali-guards-sue-canada-government/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepali-guards-sue-canada-government/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629113964967000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF_vbyXjkznQcgethYi-VAXg_lldg">sued the Canadian government </a>in 2018, and finally <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/canada-settlement-with-families-of-nepali-guards/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/canada-settlement-with-families-of-nepali-guards/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629113964967000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE8GgyoW7SKOcucIKsvMUT19KI1fw">reached a settlement</a> verdict on compensation at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto last year. Five of the Nepali soldiers wounded in the attack and 13 widows of those killed were awarded a total of $20.4 million in compensation. <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/guarding-guards-afghanitan,3370" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/guarding-guards-afghanitan,3370&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629113964967000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEVDrjU4r49vZyjGUrngw5_Cig9ZA">The guards were killed</a> when a lone suicide bomber blew up the unarmoured bus taking them to the Canadian embassy for their duty.After the attack Sabre International terminated its contract with the Canadian embassy, and shut down operations. Representing the Nepali plaintiffs, Canadian lawyer Joe Fiorante had told CBC: “These men died in the service of our country and have basically been cast aside…They were abandoned by our government and we thought that was dishonourable and frankly unacceptable.” The American and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, has now left Nepalis and other nationals working for them in a similar predicament. Although a Taliban offensive was expected, what has shocked many is the speed at which the US-trained, equipped, and funded Afghan security forces have either surrendered or been defeated. There are no accurate figures for the number of foreign contract workers still in Afghanistan, but many had been leaving, and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction put the number at 7,000. It is not clear how many are still there. However, besides registered Nepalis there are also said to be many other undocumented workers of which neither the government in Nepal nor the embassy in New Delhi have exact figures. Many have been <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15312#.YRjkLy1w3OQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D15312%23.YRjkLy1w3OQ&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629113964967000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGop6Gp8JOg2gil_DovcJlzScCJJw">cheated by their recruiters</a>, and are stranded there.“Everyone has been so focused on the U.S. troops, and also the Afghans, interpreters and others who could face revenge killings by a resurgent Taliban," said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch to <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-08-10/contractors-who-powered-u-s-war-in-afghanistan-stuck-in-dubai" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-08-10/contractors-who-powered-u-s-war-in-afghanistan-stuck-in-dubai&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629113964967000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG_gLNys429Cdv8JTQb-_aJrNvBlA">Los Angeles Times. </a>“About the stranded foreign workers, the Biden administration can say, well, their companies and their governments should have moved heaven and earth to get them home.”Meanwhile, <a href="http://s.ca/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Globalnews.ca</a> reported that Canada had not approved the evacuation of 100 Nepali guards from its embassy in Kabul, even after its other staff were flown out.

Who will rescue Nepalis from Afghanistan?

<figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107111152/6368e3ab9c7e80680e033396jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Family members went to the Tribhuvan International Airport in June 2016 to collect the corpses of the Nepalis killed in Afghanistan. </figcaption></figure>Widows of the 13 Nepalis killed in the 2016 Kabul attack and five survivors have sued the Canada government for neglecting the safety of the Gurkhas hired to guard its embassy in Afghanistan.Also read: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/rebirth/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rebirth</a>, Upasana KhadkaIn a lawsuit filed at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto on Tuesday, they have also named Sabre International -- the private security firm that hired Nepali guards to protect the Canadian embassy in Kabul -- as a defendant.The lawsuit was filed on the eve of the second anniversary of the Kabul attack. On 20 June 2016, 13 Nepali guards were killed and five injured when they were travelling to the Canadian embassy on an unarmored bus. A lone suicide bomber blew the bus up.Also read: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/guarding-guards-afghanitan,3370" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Who guards the guards?</a>, Om Astha Rai<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/GUEST-COLUMN/Nobodies-who-are-somebody,750" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nobodies who are somebody</a>, Sangita ThebeNepali guards were made to live away from the embassy, and they used to make a risky journey to their duty station every day. The plaintiffs have asked the Canada government what measures it had taken to protect the Nepalis guarding its people and property in Kabul.They have sought $20.4 million in compensation and damages from the Canada government and Sabre International. Widows of the victims and survivors claim that Sabre International owed $300,000 to each of them in compensation, but they have received only a fraction of their dues. They have asked the Canada government to pay the amount yet unpaid by Sabre International.After the Kabul attack, Sabre International terminated its contract with the Canadian embassy, and shut down all its contact offices in Afghanistan as well as in Nepal. Sabre is no longer operating, and a legal notice is yet to be served to it.Canadian lawyer Joe Fiorante, who is representing the Nepali plaintiffs, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/suicide-bombing-gurkhas-lawsuit-1.470887" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has told CBC:</a> "These men died in the service of our country and have basically been cast aside…They were abandoned by our government and we thought that was dishonourable and frankly unacceptable."Also read: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2016/06/21/nepal-mp-slams-canada/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepali MP slams Canada</a>

Nepali guards sue Canada government

On Tuesday, leader of the monarchist RPP once again gathered on Kathmandu’s streets to deliver fiery speeches, but this time there was no arson and looting and no need for riot police to fire live rounds or tear gas.
RPP leaders demanded the release of their members including vice-president Rabindra Mishra and MP Dhawal Shamsher Rana were arrested during the violent <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/republicans-and-royalists-on-nepal-s-streets">28 March protests at Tinkune </a>which left two dead. 
They denounced the current leadership of the main parties, demanding the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/nepal-party-reincarnating-hindu-monarchy">restitution of Nepal as a Hindu kingdom</a>. They also said the government was responsible for the fatalities on 28 March because it provoked its rally with a tear gas attack even before it started.
It has now been revealed that the police fired at least 100 live rounds from high powered assault rifles at the crowd. Twenty-one of the 120 injured received bullet wounds, and most of them were bystanders and people trying to reach home. 
Tuesday protest on the Ring Road in Balkhu was much more subdued, and comparatively fewer RPP supporters showed up. The arson and vandalism in the previous protest appears to have cost some support for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-ghost-of-monarchy-returns-to-haunt-nepal">former king Gyanendra </a>especially for the anointment of medical tycoon and bank defaulter <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/street-politics">Durga Prasai </a>as ‘commander’ of the Tinkune rally.
Some monarchists acknowledge Gyanendra’s mistakes when was king 2001-2008, but say he has had a lot of time to reflect on his shortcomings and seems more disciplined and committed. His supporters have tried to build on nostalgia among some Nepalis for<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/why-invest-in-nepal"> domestic stability </a>and international respect that <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/if-birendra-was-alive-nepal-could-still-be-a-monarchy">the monarchy</a> commanded. 
“Nepalis were promised better service delivery, opportunities for the underserved, as well as better, more honest use of state resources, but the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16992">people in leadership </a>have not been able to deliver on their commitments,” says RPP leader Prakash Chandra Lohani. “The gap between their rhetoric and reality has widened, the people feel betrayed, and the respect Nepali people had previously had for them has changed to revulsion.” 
Indeed, many commentators have warned the three main parties and their <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/politics-as-usual">serial prime ministers</a> who have ruled Nepal for much of the past 30 years should address rising public anger with them, and see the writing on the wall.
‘<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-government-changes-again">The UML, NC and Maoists</a> must introspect about their conduct,” warns Gunaraj Luitel, editor of Nagarik, in an op-ed this week. ‘These leaders for life may save themselves from simmering public anger, but they will not be able to save the system. The monarchist wave can only be dispelled when citizens are assured of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-local-election-gives-power-back-to-people">better governance</a> through <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/latest/real-world-training-for-youth-leaders">younger leaders</a>, and reforms.’ 
Rifts between radical royals who are gunning for a return to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/mob-movement-and-mayhem">Panchayat-style absolutism </a>and moderate monarchists who favour a constitutional king have also weakened the movement somewhat. The split between the RPP and RPP-Nepal cost the royalists numbers in Parliament in 2022, and both parties denounced the violence last month, albeit shifting the blame on the government.
The irony is that the same royalists who want to scrap the republican Constitution had formed electoral alliances with the UML during the 2022 elections. RPP-Nepal chair Kamal Thapa contested the 2022 election with the UML. Thapa has not taken part in the last two rallies, saying he will only be a part of a movement under a national flag, and not a RPP party banner.
For his part, the RPP’s Rajendra Lingden is said to be hesitant to censure some of his party’s more radical royalists for fear of fissure within his ranks, despite his aversion to Durga Prasai’s role. 
Analysts have questioned why <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/old-is-still-gold-in-nepali-politics">supporters of the monarchy </a>have decided to reestablish an institution that would not ultimately have executive decision-making power. There are doubts about whether authoritarian-minded Gyanendra will be satisfied being a <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=13957">ceremonial king</a>. 
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-s-deja-vu-on-black-friday">Nepal’s déjà vu on Black Friday</a>, Sonia Awale
"The Nepali people will not accept <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/forgotten-woman-who-sheltered-communist-activists">an absolute monarchy </a>at this point of time, and both the public as well as <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=8371">king Gyanendra</a> are fully aware that there is no other possibility beyond a constitutional monarchy," asserts the RPP’s Lohani. “The traditional monarchy’s institutional capacity might have been enough to meet the needs of feudal Nepal, but an absolute monarchy is impossible both in concept and practice in the context of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Economic-Class/waiting-for-an-industrial-revolution,784">modern day Nepal</a>.”

New year revolutions

Besides multiple <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/republicans-and-royalists-on-nepal-s-streets">street demonstrations </a>that gridlocked Kathmandu’s traffic for the past weeks, public discourse in Nepal has also been dominated by dangerously <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/air-pollution-is-more-dangerous-than-smoking">high air pollution levels</a>. Caused mostly by hundreds of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/wildfire-season-starts-early-in-nepal">forest fires </a>raging across the country, the smoke contains suspended soot particles that harms <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/playing-with-poison">human health</a>. Thursday’s rain have cleared the air somewhat, and many people will soon forget how bad the air quality was. But the time to address the roots of next summer’s fire season is now.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250411060440_d1a119716a9031aadfdd611d299348d436842d376a03e664b8d773957a237524.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250411060440_d1a119716a9031aadfdd611d299348d436842d376a03e664b8d773957a237524" data-rendition-name="original" width="502" height="540" loading="lazy" alt="Wildfires"> <figcaption>EXTINGUISHED: Forest fires raging all over Nepal in the week after 3 March (above) reduced air quality, creating a public health hazard in Kathmandu and across the country. Each red dot is a fire detected by infrared sensors on the NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) satellite. But the rain on Thursday doused most of the fires (below) with more rain forecast over the weekend.</figcaption> </figure>  The reason everyone was talking about air pollution was because the<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-is-going-up-in-smoke"> smoke from wildfires</a> was visible. But much more toxic are the invisible and odourless <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-doubles-its-carbon-footprint">gases from vehicular and industrial emissions </a>which have always been there. The theme of World Health Day on 7 April this week was ‘Healthy Beginnings, Hopeful Futures’ dedicated to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/saving-more-mothers-and-babies">preventing maternal and newborn deaths</a>. It is estimated that in Nepal, 30% of neonatal mortality can be blamed on air pollution. But that is only part of the story. Harmful as fine particulate matter is to human health, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ground-level ozone and other gases in vehicular emissions are more hazardous to health. While the concentration of suspended particulate matter tinier than 1.5 microns (PM2.5) is closely monitored, these toxic gases are invisible, not measured much, and the public is not aware about the dangers they pose. Surface ozone is produced by the interaction of various gases found when <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/fossil-fuels-poison-air">burning fossil fuels</a>. Besides being poisonous, ground level ozone contributes up to 0.23°C to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-mountains-are-melting">global warming</a> because it is also a greenhouse gas. A new policy brief by the Clean Air Fund titled The Case for Action on Tropospheric Ozone blames surface ozone for a half a million premature deaths every year, 54.8% of which are in South Asia. Ozone also stunts plant growth and reduces crop yields by 26% globally, and 11% loss in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/economic-benefits-of-saving-the-ecology">forest productivity</a>, the report adds.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250411060456_aa02a923f8b27544ae54d0220162678f5bbb5eeb8fc3c466173c22c49b3e9a85.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20250411060456_aa02a923f8b27544ae54d0220162678f5bbb5eeb8fc3c466173c22c49b3e9a85" data-rendition-name="original" width="998" height="724" loading="lazy" alt="Gas Chambers"> </figure>  Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/bad-air-and-polluted-politics">Bad air and polluted politics</a>, Sonia Awale Ground-level ozone is not emitted directly into the air like other gases, but is formed when oxides of nitrogen (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released from automobile tailpipes or industry smokestacks react chemically with each other in the presence of sunlight. The main source of carbon monoxide in Kathmandu Valley are its 1.2 million two-wheelers. “Usually the concentration of carbon monoxide is 200-500 parts per billion (ppb), this has increased up to 3,000 in Kathmandu. Meanwhile, ground-level ozone has gone from 70-80 ppb to 150 ppb,” says Ravi Sahu, regional air quality specialist with the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).&nbsp; Sahu says <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/no-smoke-without-fire-p7vb9dcj">rampant forest fires of the past weeks</a> have also added to carbon monoxide and ozone in the air, not just the fine particles that make up the visible smoke. He adds, “There isn’t much awareness about <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/poisoning-the-air-we-breathe">ground-level ozone and carbon monoxide</a>, we need to urgently look into it.” A distinction must be made between good and bad ozone. Stratospheric ozone protects living beings from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun.&nbsp; Tropospheric ozone can again be separated into two types: ozone in the free atmosphere which is a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide, and ground-level ozone which has adverse impacts on health and agriculture. ‘Cutting tropospheric ozone presents a unique challenge as it requires smart and fast action across multiple greenhouse gases and air pollutants, as well as multiple economic sectors,’ notes the Clean Air Fund's policy briefing. ‘It is a growing and neglected problem that needs an integrated approach on both a local and global level to tackle climate change and air pollution together.’ Dying young There was a time when Nepal made it to international news bulletins only if there were fatalities on Mt Everest. Now, Kathmandu’s bad air frequently makes headlines all over the world. This past week, the concentration of PM2.5 that harms human health was up to 40 times the WHO recommended guideline — adding to the poisonous gases already present from vehicle emissions. The Department of Environment says 40% of the pollution in the past weeks was from wildfires sparked by nearly 6 months without substantial rain over central Nepal. Most of the rest is from vehicular and industrial emissions from Kathmandu itself and across the southern border. NASA’s Fire Information and Resource Management System (FIRMS) which issues daily maps of fires, showed hundreds of blazes raging across Nepal on Wednesday, mainly in Chitwan, Parsa and along the East-West Highway.&nbsp; “If we look at the figures for the last few years, it is clear that wildfires have become the biggest source of air pollution, they are seasonal but have overtaken vehicular emissions,” says urban planner and environmentalist Bhushan Tuladhar. “Forest fires, stubble burning, and open burning of garbage are the bigger problems now. Nepal, India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are at risk every year, we shouldn’t further delay in finding solutions,” warned air quality expert Bhupendra Das during an event on air pollution organised on 7 March by the Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ).&nbsp; Indeed, studies have shown that in winter 60% of the air pollution over Kathmandu is transboundary from the south, and in November it is compounded by smoke from crop residue burning by farmers in India and Pakistan blown in by prevailing winds. Forest fires are a regular pre-monsoon occurrence in Nepal, often intentionally set by farmers and herders to stimulate new grass growth for livestock. Winter rains have failed for eight of the past ten years, and this means the fires often spread out of control. The other reason for the increase in wildfires is the doubling of forest fires to 46% of the country’s area in the past 25 years. But this has happened simultaneously with outmigration, with some mountain districts losing 30% of their population between 2011-2021. With less pressure on forests for fodder and firewood, the undergrowth of community forests is loaded with dry fuel just waiting for a spark. The bowl-shaped topography of Kathmandu, Pokhara and other valleys further concentrates pollutants as they are trapped by surrounding mountains. But a year with a high number of wildfires is usually followed by a year or two with fewer incidents. For example: there were 6,537 fires in 2021 but the following year the number was down to 1,528. There were 5,216 fires last year, this year the number has already reached 1,800, and the trend is likely to be broken. Heavy rains forecast for the coming days are expected to douse some of the fires and clean up the air. But the damage has been done: Kathmandu residents of all age groups this week crowded clinics and hospitals with burning eyes, itchy throats, difficulty breathing, headaches, and dizziness. But in the longer term, soot particles that are tiny enough to jump the blood-air divide in lung capillaries do not just cause Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), asthma, but also cancers, heart attacks, strokes, birth defects and other chronic diseases. The latest Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) report by the University of Chicago shows that the annual concentration of PM2.5 in Kathmandu’s air rose from 17.87µg/m3 in 1998 to 31.33µg/m3 in 2022. Air pollution has got worse by 75% in Kathmandu in 25 years. During this time, air pollution has reduced the average life expectancy of Kathmandu’s residents by 3.5 years. According to the Health Effects Institute in Boston, dirty air is among the biggest public health concerns in Nepal killing over 42,100 a year. The adverse impact of high levels of air pollution is not limited to public health, it is seriously affecting tourism. Operators in Pokhara this week said that there were many negative online posts by visitors unable to see the famous panorama of Machapuchre and the Annapurnas even from Sarangkot. Aviation is also affected, as planes have to circle sometimes for hours burning a lot of fuel because of runway visibility being below minima at Kathmandu airport. The higher fuel cost is just passed down to customers, making air tickets in and out of Kathmandu some of the highest in the world. Kathmandu, with a population of four million, has not implemented a concrete policy to curb toxic air despite having formulated various action plans and repeated commitments by the government to protect the environment and control air pollution. The Department of Environment’s 2017 Air Quality Management Action Plan for Kathmandu put forward a policy to reduce air pollution caused by vehicles which was approved by the Cabinet, but has yet to be put to practice. The action included the immediate implementation of the Euro 5 emission standard to reduce pollution emitted by vehicles. However, Nepal has not even been able to implement Euro 4 standards so far. India, meanwhile, has already moved forward with the implementation of the Euro 6 standards. Says Ravi Sahu: “Air pollution in Nepal is not just about air pollution, it has ties to tourism, aviation, the economy so we must be prepared for annual conditions like forest fires, and this requires urgent interdisciplinary collaboration.” &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250411050452_821d09e283d8a590f1369bfb71b9b7fc6d950726e0651ea86c6488d04deb1742.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="20250411050452_821d09e283d8a590f1369bfb71b9b7fc6d950726e0651ea86c6488d04deb1742" data-rendition-name="original" width="839" height="784" loading="lazy" alt="Silent Killers"> </figure>  &nbsp;

What is invisible is more dangerous

82 in २०८२

Here in the mountains of far-western Nepal, the biggest threat to life and limb is gravity. Women collecting fodder fall from trees, boys grazing goats fall off cliffs, heavily loaded tractors plunge from dirt roads carved out of steep slopes. There is nothing to be done about those who die on the spot. But for the severely wounded there is only one hospital: Bayalpata. And it is there that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJzWlnYd0ZM&amp;t=8s" target="_blank">orthopaedic surgeon Mandeep Pathak</a> is the last hope for many wounded people. Pathak, 42, is too modest to tell us how many lives he has saved over the past 10 years he has worked at Bayalpata. But hospital records show he has performed more than 4,000 operations in the past decade, many of them so patients did not suffer permanent physical disabilities. Pathak also did 800 major life-saving surgeries in that time. “I treat patients with injuries, but I wish I could also treat poverty,” Pathak says, emerging from Bayalpata’s surgical theatre one recent afternoon. <div class="embed-block"><iframe width="700" height="415" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CJzWlnYd0ZM?si=s_rkbU4YDaw87gqH" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> Sudurpaschim Province in Nepal’s far-west is far away from everything: from Kathmandu, from adequate medical care, from food security, and far from the reach of government services. It has suffered state neglect for centuries, its men mainly migrating to India for seasonal work to families who depend on subsistence agriculture. Pathak remembers the searing sadness he felt when a patient once told him, “Doctor, I sold the last of my rice to pay to come here, please give me a medicine that I can take on an empty stomach.” Pathak was born in Kathmandu, and after getting his MBBS from Kathmandu University, he got an MD from The Philippines. At a time when many Nepali doctors and staff nurses were emigrating, Pathak did not just return to Kathmandu but decided to go to one of the remotest districts in Nepal to serve those most in need. The hospital was established in 2009 in the village of Bayalpata, and has been managed by the non-profit <a href="https://www.nyayahealthnepal.org/" target="_blank">Nyaya Health Nepal (NHN)</a> as a public-private partnership treating 100,000 patients a year for no fees at all. NHN is now preparing to hand over the running of the hospital to the Sudurpaschim provincial government so its <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/this-is-how-to-upgrade-nepals-rural-health" target="_blank">model of hospital management</a> can be replicated.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250414130456_b59dabd4604a24426a55fe91c0e5866b5029858bdb4c4028c331557aeb5408ae.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250414130456_b59dabd4604a24426a55fe91c0e5866b5029858bdb4c4028c331557aeb5408ae" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Bayalpata hospital"> <figcaption>Bayalpata hospital in Achham.</figcaption> </figure>  People from not just Achham but surrounding districts, and from as far away as Humla, bring patients to Bayalpata, sometimes walking for days. Some with complicated pregnancies are brought in stretchers, young children with broken arms walk into the emergency, and sometimes there are mass casualties when a tractor or bus falls off a road. And Pathak is always there with his team performing triage, and doing orthopaedic surgeries that would be difficult even in Kathmandu. Recently, his team did a hip replacement at <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/state-of-the-art-rural-hospital" target="_blank">Bayalpata Hospital</a>. Mild mannered, modest, soft-spoken, hard-working, professional are the words families of patients who have been treated at <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-rural-lifeline" target="_blank">Bayalpata Hospital </a>use to describe Mandeep Pathak. But the surgeon is too busy to let all this get to this head.&nbsp; Asked why he does not emigrate like his peers or get a lucrative position at a private hospital in Kathmandu, Pathak answers simply, without a trace of self-importance, “I do not think I could get the satisfaction or sense of fulfilment anywhere else.” When travelling to attend medical congresses overseas or visit family in Kathmandu, Bayalpata has other doctors to take care of patients, but many wait patiently till Pathak returns for their consultation or surgery.&nbsp; When he returns from seminars abroad after learning the latest skills, Pathak’s suitcases are not full of clothes or presents, but titanium bone implants, external fixation rods, or intramedullary nails to be used in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/altruistic-healthcare-models-in-nepal" target="_blank">surgeries at Bayalpata</a>.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025041414040_5356278472c1eb2b9e4af1d593d6234cc8dc5e5161a8c614197c01abefadbd80.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="2025041414040_5356278472c1eb2b9e4af1d593d6234cc8dc5e5161a8c614197c01abefadbd80" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1368" loading="lazy" alt="surgery"> </figure>  Before Bayalpata Hospital was established, most people suffering broken bones had to travel down to Dhangadi or Nepalganj for treatment. No more. Although Pathak’s specialisation is orthopaedic oncology, he is mostly treating fractures and rejoining broken bones.&nbsp; Now as Bayalpata’s Hospital Director, Pathak also has administrative and fundraising duties. He has to take the 10-hour ride down to Dhangadi often to meet various Sudurpaschim ministries to release the hospital’s budget — that is sometimes more difficult than the most complicated surgery. Recently, he had to cancel an appointment with the Chief Minister to rush back to Bayalpata because there was a patient who needed emergency surgery. “I told myself, let me save this patient first, then I will try to save the hospital,” he recalls.&nbsp; Once, when he had to be away for a month on emergency surgery training in the US, the family of a 90-year-old woman who had dislocated her hip after falling from a staircase was waiting for him to return. Her son told Pathak: “Doctor, either put her out of her suffering, or cure her.” Pathak told him it was too dangerous to operate at her age, but the son said his mother was in so much pain it was worth the risk. The operation was touch-and-go, but it was successful. The woman who had been brought in on a stretcher, walked out of the hospital three days after the operation.&nbsp; A few months later, a 27-year-old woman was brought into the ER bleeding profusely from an arm mangled by a thresher machine. Even in that state, she was breastfeeding her baby. Pathak welled up seeing this display of selfless motherhood, as he wheeled her into surgery. She needed three operations, but now has full use of her hand. <div class="embed-block"><iframe width="700" height="415" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xJdxLD0hBqo?si=mOpM2R_DsYL88Lfg" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> It is the sense of achievement from such recovery that keeps Mandeep Pathak here in this isolated village in the middle of nowhere. Bayalpata Hospital has not just saved lives, it also saves families from poverty because they do not have to take sick relatives to expensive city hospitals.&nbsp; In January, a woman was brought to Bayalpata with both hands broken. She said she had taken a fall, but Pathak did not believe her. When alone in the surgery, she finally admitted that her husband had beaten her.&nbsp; It was her husband who had brought her to hospital for treatment, but she refused to file a police report. Pathak quietly put both her arms in casts, thinking about the poverty, patriarchy and injustice in society that he is unable to treat.

kabul