After the Taliban took over Afghanistan’s first female mayor says it’s only a matter of time before they come after her. Mayor Zarifa Ghafari says she has no escape plan for her and her family after the Taliban quickly took Afghanistan’s capital over the weekend.
According to The Daily Wire:
Zarifa Ghafari, 27, became the youngest and first female mayor in Afghanistan in 2018. She has received numerous death threats from the Taliban and faced multiple attempted assassinations. Her father, Afghan General Abdul Wasi Ghafari, was killed last year. Zarifa held a defense ministry post in Kabul, moved there over fear for her safety, until the Taliban overran the city over the weekend, according to iNews.
“I’m sitting here waiting for them to come. There is no one to help me or my family. I’m just sitting with them and my husband. And they will come for people like me and kill me. I can’t leave my family. And anyway, where would I go?” she told iNews.
Less than a month ago Ghafari has seemed optimistic about her country’s future, telling iNews at the time: “Younger people are aware of what’s happening. They have social media. They communicate. I think they will continue fighting for progress and our rights. I think there is a future for this country.”
Refugees who fled to Kabul before its fall said that Taliban militants had already begun cracking down on Afghans in outlying cities and towns, forcing unmarried women to wed Taliban fighters and executing Afghan soldiers. Members of the Taliban have reportedly already started “door to door” searches of Kabul looking for any former officials of the Afghan government, soldiers, journalists, and others.
Many Afghanistan government officials have already fled the country, including President Ashraf Ghani.