June 24 (EUROPA PRESS) –
An Afghan journalist identified only as Saim committed suicide last Thursday in Islamabad, Pakistan, after learning that the United States had denied his refugee claim.
The journalist waited for almost two years for the resolution of his application until he finally found out that it had been rejected. “The reason for the suicide was the rejection of his asylum request in the United States,” reported a source quoted by the Afghan media outlet Jaama Press.
A former Pakistani senator, Afrasiab Jatak, has criticized the fact that Afghans who had to leave their country “after the collapse of the previous government and the humanitarian crisis” are not recognized as refugees.
In April, a journalist for Afghan television Ariana News TV who had to flee the country, Samiullah Yahesh, had to sell a kidney to feed his family. “I had no other option. I had no money to eat,” he recounted then.
Hundreds of thousands of Afghans fled the country after the Taliban takeover in August 2021. Some are journalists persecuted by fundamentalists who have been unable to obtain refugee status in European countries or the United States and are now on the verge of the temporary visas granted to them by Pakistan expired.
