A female mayor in Afghanistan hid in a car footwell to avoid the Taliban while trying to flee to Kabul airport

August 27, 2021

A female mayor in Afghanistan hid in a car footwell to avoid the Taliban while trying to flee to Kabul airport

Zarifa Ghafari speaks in front of microphones — Zarifa Ghafari speaking in Germany after being evacuated out of Afghanistan.
Federico Gambarini/picture alliance via Getty Images

One of Afghanistan's first female mayors said she had to hide from the Taliban to reach Kabul airport.
Zarifa Ghafari told the BBC she hid in a car footwell and ducked through Taliban checkpoints.
She said fighters came to her house and beat up her security guard after taking control of Afghanistan.
See more stories on Insider's business page.

One of Afghanistan's first female mayors said she hid in a car footwell to avoid the Taliban while trying to flee to Kabul airport.

Zarifa Ghafari told the BBC that Taliban fighters came to her home and beat up her security guard after the group regained control of the country.

She said that on August 18 - three days after the Taliban seized Kabul - she and her family took a car to the city's airport, where she hid in the footwell and ducked every time the vehicle went through a Taliban checkpoint.

"When we reached the airport gate, there were Taliban fighters everywhere," she said. "I was struggling to hide myself."

Ghafari, who was the mayor of the city of Maidan Sharh, spoke to the BBC from Germany, where she managed to be evacuated to.

She called the day the Taliban took Kabul as the "worst moment of my life."

"I'll never be able to manage the pain inside my heart. I never planned to leave my country," she said.

The BBC reported that she has survived other attempts to kill her.

Her father, a senior member of the Afghan military, was killed last year, and Ghafari told the BBC she thinks he had enemies in the Taliban.

She told iNews before she left Afghanistan: "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?"

When last in power, the Taliban put strict restrictions on women. They were barred from education, work, and leaving home alone, and were subject to severe punishments, including stoning, if they broke the group's rules.

Read the original article on Business Insider