Taliban Frees British Elderly Couple After Months of Detention

Reuters

ritish couple Peter and Barbie Reynolds in Qatar after their release from Taliban detention.

A British couple detained by the Taliban for nearly eight months have been freed and reunited with their daughter in an emotional embrace after landing in Qatar on Friday.

Peter Reynolds, 80, and his wife Barbie, 76, who lived in Afghanistan for nearly two decades, were on their way home when they were stopped on 1 February. Their release was secured through Qatari mediation, and they are now expected to travel on to the UK following medical checks in Doha.

The Taliban said the pair had violated Afghan laws and were released after judicial proceedings, though no further details have been disclosed.

The couple, who married in Kabul in 1970, spent the past 18 years in Bamiyan province running a charitable training programme. Their initiative had been approved by Taliban officials after the group retook power in 2021.

Family members have described the Reynoldses as having a deep and enduring connection with Afghanistan, demonstrated by their decision to remain in the country after many other Westerners left in August 2021 when the Taliban seized control.

Their detention prompted months of public lobbying by relatives, who described severe conditions. In July, their son Jonathan Reynolds said his father was experiencing serious convulsions and his mother was suffering from anaemia and malnutrition. He revealed that at one point they were chained to criminals and held for six weeks in a basement without sunlight.

Only last week, an American woman who had been detained alongside them and released earlier this year told the BBC that the pair had been “literally dying” in prison and that “time is running out.”

Source: BBC



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