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A British couple have been freed from months of detention in Afghanistan, the UK Foreign Office has said.
The Taliban released Barbie Reynolds, 76, and her husband Peter, 80, after eight months of detention.
The couple were arrested in February as they travelled to their home in Bamyan province, central Afghanistan.
They had been held since then without charge and for a long period were separated and detained in a maximum-security prison.
They had lived in Afghanistan for nearly two decades, and ran a training and education organisation.
Speaking to Sky News at Kabul international airport before she boarded a flight to Doha, Barbie Reynolds said she was looking forward to “seeing our children and our families” and, when asked if she would return to Afghanistan, replied “if we can”.
Accompanying them, Richard Lindsay, the UK special envoy to Afghanistan, told the broadcaster: “We’ve been incredibly grateful for the government of Qatar, their efforts to help release them from detention.
“It’s up to the authorities here [in Kabul] to determine why they were detained. We’re grateful at least today is a great humanitarian day and they will be reunited with their family.”
Pushed on why they were detained, Lindsay said: “They’ve been released now. I’m not clear what grounds they were held on.”
Asked about their health, he said: “I’m not a doctor, but they are very happy.
“They are very relieved to be going home, they’re just delighted to be reunited with their family.”
Accompanying the couple in Kabul, Mirdef Ali Al-Qashouti, a senior Qatari diplomat in Afghanistan, said: “We are very grateful for Afghanistan and UK for their cooperation to conclude this case. It’s a very good moment for us to show our appreciation to make sure that this is the way we deal with problems and conflicts and how to resolve it with good manners and with peaceful solutions.”
In an interview in July with the Guardian, their son Jonathan Reynolds, who lives in Chicago, said their condition was deteriorating and he feared they would die in prison.
After the Taliban returned to power in 2021, Reynolds said, his parents decided to stay despite the security risks. “They said: ‘How could we possibly leave these people we love in their darkest hour?’ But the warning was, if you stay, you’re on your own,” Jonathan said. “They knew full well that something like this could happen.
“We’ve counted the cost as a family for that. They have always said, ‘If this does happen, don’t trade us for some terrorist who’s in prison, and don’t pay a penny in ransom money.’ But they never told us what they did want us to do, which has been really, really difficult.”
Barbie and Peter have five children, 17 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, who live across the UK and US.
