LONDON: The daughter of an elderly British man detained with his wife by the Taliban in Afghanistan has expressed grave fears for his health, a report said on Sunday.
Peter and Barbie Reynolds, who are in their 70s, were detained last month with an American friend, Faye Hall, as they travelled to their home in central Bamyan province.
“We hear he now has a chest infection, a double eye infection and serious digestive issues due to poor nutrition. Without immediate access to necessary medication, his life is in serious danger,“ the Sunday Times quoted his daughter, Sarah Entwistle, as saying.
“Our desperate appeal to the Taliban is that they release them to their home, where they have the medication he needs to survive,“ she added.
Entwistle said that according to information provided by a “reliable source” her 79-year-old father had been “beaten and shackled” and was in “immense pain”.
The report said Barbie Reynolds, 75, had also been told she could no longer see her husband.
Entwistle described her parents’ alleged separation as a “shocking escalation”.
The Reynolds, who married in Kabul in 1970, have run school training programmes in the country for 18 years.
They remained in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in 2021 when the British embassy withdrew its staff.
Following their arrest on February 1, the couple's home had been ransacked and staff questioned over whether there was a missionary component to the training, the report said.
The suggestion is strongly denied by the staff and family.
The Taliban’s interior ministry has confirmed the detention of two Britons, a Chinese-American and their Afghan translator arrested “based on certain considerations”.
“Efforts are underway to resolve this issue,“ a spokesperson said in late February, without identifying the detainees.
Taliban leaders swept back to power in 2021 ousting the US-backed government and implementing a strict interpretation of Islamic law, despite promises not to return to the brutality displayed when they ruled in the 1990s.
They have since imposed broad restrictions on women and girls, barring them from education beyond the age of 12 and squeezing them out of jobs and public life with rules the United Nations has labelled “gender apartheid”.
A spokesperson for Britain’s Foreign Office told AFP: “We are supporting the family of two British nationals who are detained in Afghanistan.”
