Colourful kites have been flown in the sky over London in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan on the two-year anniversary of the Taliban takeover.
One Afghan refugee now living in the UK said those involved wanted to be “a voice, far from our home” for all those who are now living under the oppressive regime, especially women and girls.
The gathering at Parliament Hill on Tuesday followed a similar event last August where the Good Chance theatre teamed up with Afghan artists and more than 70 partners globally for what they said was the world’s largest ever international kite festival.
This year’s gathering was expected to be smaller and more informal but no less important, according to Afghan refugee Amir Hussain Ibrahimi, 24.
“For women and girls we want to be a voice, far from our home,” he said.
“We just want to show that Afghanistan was colourful, Afghanistan was full of nice culture, nice people, the girls who just want to improve themselves [through education], the women who were working with men shoulder-to-shoulder to improve their country.
“And a lot of things have been lost and deleted, especially hope. The people of Afghanistan lost hope.”
The art of making and flying kites using coloured tissue paper and bamboo sticks has been a popular tradition in Afghanistan for centuries.
But Mr Ibrahimi said that, as during their rule in the 1990s, the Taliban has again banned many activities that bring people joy, including kite-flying.
“One of the more important parts of our Afghan culture is these amazing multi-coloured kites and we fly them, make them, design them since we were children,” he said.
“This is something that makes you really proud when you fly them because it is part of a hope for Afghan people.”
The fundamentalist Taliban regime returned to power in Afghanistan on August 15 2021 in a lightning offensive across the country, as Western forces including Britain and the US hurriedly made their withdrawal after a 20-year occupation.
Operation Pitting was the largest evacuation effort Britain has been involved in since the Second World War, and saw more than 15,000 people taken from Afghanistan to the UK in just over 16 days in August 2021.
On the second anniversary of the takeover this week, Bond, an umbrella body in the UK representing international development organisations, said the Afghan people had been living “in a waking nightmare” since the Taliban’s return.
“They are called the Taliban and unfortunately they have banned everything,” said Mr Ibrahimi.
“They banned the kites, they banned music, they want to remove women from society and they are trying to delete everything that doesn’t follow their rules.”
He said he feels “proud and happy to share our amazing culture here” in the UK, but feels sad that his fellow Afghans back home have been deprived of so much in the past two years.
He added: “This year is going to be the second since my homeland fell to the Taliban and I am thinking I left my country at that time in one night and everything changed.”
Those taking part in this and other kite-flying events this year were encouraged to use the hashtags #rememberAfghanistan and #flywithme to keep the plight of the Afghan people forefront of the public’s minds.
Mr Ibrahimi, who works as a marketing and production assistant at the Good Chance theatre in east London, has been living in a hotel in Southend-on-Sea for almost two years as he struggles to find long-term accommodation in the UK.
He has previously spoken of the challenging situation on the ground for refugees who are trying to find permanent homes but often struggle despite the Government support provided.
