An elderly British couple detained for months in Afghanistan are receiving medical care, the Taliban government’s top diplomat said Wednesday, after UN experts warned they were at risk of dying.
Peter and Barbie Reynolds, 80-years-old and 75-years-old, had lived in Afghanistan for 18 years when they were arrested in February along with Chinese-American friend Faye Hall, who has since been released, and an Afghan translator.
“All their human rights are being respected,” Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told a news conference in the capital Kabul.
“They are being provided with medical care. They are in occasional contact with their families.”
Muttaqi said “efforts are underway to secure their release, but the process is not complete”, echoing similar comments by the government in April.
Independent United Nations experts warned on Monday of the “rapid deterioration” of their physical and mental health, stating that they “risk irreparable harm or even death”.
The couple, against whom no charges have been brought, were held “in a high-security facility for several months, then in underground cells, without daylight, before being transferred last week” to the intelligence services in Kabul, according to the UN.
The experts said Peter Reynolds requires heart medication following a stroke in 2023.
Since his detention, he has suffered two eye infections and intermittent tremors in his head and left arm.
His wife, who is anemic, is “weak and fragile” and has reported numbness in her feet, the experts said.
The couple, who married in Kabul in 1970, had been running education programmes in Afghanistan and held Afghan passports.
Taliban officials have refused to detail the reasons for their arrest but a source familiar with the case told AFP in April that the couple were in possession of several non-Islamic books.
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© Agence France-Presse
