The campaign is fighting for sanctuary in the UK for former Afghan British Army translators in danger of Taliban revenge attacks.
In a “major victory” for the Daily Mail’s ‘Betrayal of the brave’ campaign, more than a dozen Afghans who acted as translators for the British Army are being relocated to the UK today, where they can start new lives away from the threat of Taliban retribution.
The ‘Betrayal of the brave’ campaign has been fighting for the safe relocation of Afghan translators since 2015, who had felt abandoned by the UK government after having risked their lives to help the army serve during the conflict.
The Daily Mail’s campaign has enjoyed repeated success, with vulnerable Afghan translators winning the right to come to the UK in 2015 and 2018, as well as this year.
As well as those still in Afghanistan, the Daily Mail had recently spotlighted translators already relocated to the UK but had their requests for their families to join them denied, despite promises they would be granted.
The families of both already relocated translators and new arrivals will be joining them in another victory for the campaign, with eligibility criteria having been widened by authorities three weeks ago.
The Daily Mail has also worked alongside the Sulha Alliance to fight for the relocation of translators dismissed by military authorities for ‘minor reasons’, such as for having an e-reader in their possession when electronic devices were banned.
This had been a reason for rejecting applications in the past, but now one affected translator has been allowed to relocate.
However, the work is not over. Colonel Simon Diggins, a former British defence attaché in Kabul and a co-founder of the Sulha Alliance representing Afghan translators, told the Daily Mail: “We welcome the arrival today of former Afghan interpreters and their families. We still have concerns though… 35% of all interpreters were terminated. This seems extraordinarily high and we do not believe that all of them can have been dismissed for reasons that would justify exclusion.”
