It seemed unlikely that it could be happening again. But it was.
After Iraq, where months of pressure from the media and serving soldiers meant that translators working for the British army – and facing regular threats from the Iraqi insurgency – were eventually offered the chance of asylum in the UK, it seemed impossible a similar situation could be recurring here in Afghanistan.
Over the past few weeks here, we’ve been interviewing former interpreters for the British Army. All served in Helmand. Some were injured at work.
One man, Yusuf, who lost his eye and teeth in an explosion in Helmand on 3 June, told us how he was shipped out of British care on Camp Bastion after five days and sent to an Afghan army hospital in Kandahar.
There, doctors found on his unconscious person (he was in a coma for 22 days) his uncle’s number. They rang it. And after eight days, Yusuf’s family finally knew where he was. They then took him to Kabul where he says he paid for his own medical care.
The story that followed – which he told us edgily in his uncle’s house (he’s scared to go home at the moment) – was about his regular trips to Camp Souter, the British base where he was hired.
He asked for his salary at first – monies earned while working in Helmand. He got that. Then he asked for compensation, or his medical bills to be covered, or the sick pay normally given. He didn’t get that.
He went back again and again. Doctors looked at his wounds and did what they could, but still he didn’t get a prosthetic eye or new teeth, or any treatment, he says.
Nearly six months and nothing, bar, he says, the occasional gruff comment that he wasn’t owed anything. This Saturday – a few days after we’d interviewed him – Yusuf was paid two months’ sick pay. $1200. And that’s all he’s seen since losing his job and his shot at a normal life.
What seems to pain him most are the promises: the promise of medical care he says he got when he joined up; the promise of a prosthetic eye a very senior British officer appears to have made in a letter to him; the promise of money that still – after all the contact with him the British have had – has simply not come.
Yusuf’s not one to keep quiet, and he was the only interpreter we talked to prepared to speak openly on camera. His story carried: other interpreters were furious about it. Eight, we were told, quit in protest at his treatment.
They were also angered at the alleged abandoning of the body of another interpreter, Tariq, earlier this year, on the battlefield. One of them we spoke to – Habib, let’s call him – said he was not being treated as “a human being. I’m thinking they just treat us like a slave.”
He says the resignations have now left the British Army in Helmand with lesser quality translators. And he said it in pretty good English, replete with soldiers’ drawl and idioms.
The Ministry of Defence didn’t take issue with how Yusuf was treated, and said that his being sent to an Afghan army hospital was standard practice. They said they didn’t think there had been that many resignations (we’ve spoken to four of the eight, who all say the same thing). They insisted they would pay Yusuf compensation and for his medical expenses.
But this is just the complaints about mistreatment. There’s another broader issue we came across. These men are terrified of the Taliban. One we interviewed was kidnapped by them in Pakistan and tortured for two months.
His captors seemed to know everything about him – how he had travelled to Peshawar for routine surgery, where he had worked. They made him pay a ransom and promise to given them the addresses of other interpreters for Nato.
When we saw him he hadn’t seen his family for 21 days, as he was afraid he’d lead the Taliban to them. He had reason to be afraid. Two men on a motorbike drove up to him in the street days before we met and gave him a letter, reminding him the Taliban were still waiting for those addresses.
The stories of fear of the Taliban were universal, as was knowledge of the death of one interpreter, apparently beheaded on the road to Kandahar. The men we spoke to – many of them – had heard of the LEC programme enacted by the MoD for Iraqi interpreters. They wondered why they weren’t eligible for the same thing.
The MoD had this to say about whether Afghans working as interpreters had the right to asylum claims in the UK –
“We take our responsibilities towards locally employed staff in Afghanistan very seriously and have put in place a number of measures to reduce the risks they face. The scheme established for our locally employed Iraqi staff reflected our judgement at the time that the circumstances in which they had served the UK had been uniquely difficult. The same conditions do not currently apply in Afghanistan.”
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Shame on this government, do they only ever recognise moral obligations when someone slaps them around the face with it and they can ignore it no more??
I think it is absolutely disgusting that afghan people risking their lives to help us in the afghan war are not given asylum in the UK. Plenty of people come to this country and have done nothing to deserve to live here, then scrounge off the state, yet people who have done more than some born and bred here get treated like rubbish.
I am appalled by your report of the parsimonious and off-hand treatment of locally recruited Afghan interpreters wounded in the line of British service. Having volunteered for a dangerous task, boldly stepping out of the local community to do so and taking the same daily risks as our personnel on the ground, we are duty and honour bound to support them. I am sure that the regulations governing their “terms of service” are drawn up and enforced by civil servants in the MoD (those about to receive bonuses for a job well done?) and in no way reflect the respect and affection in which they are held by those doing the job on the ground. It seems these battle-winning human assets are paid $600 per month and we won’t support their convalescence or treatment when wounded? Don’t make me spit with contempt for the MoD (“acutely aware of its responsibilities”). 1. Adequate and compassionate care for their injuries.
2. Front of the queue for asylum. A contemptibly small debt to pay. A former serviceman.
Pretty disgraceful-yet more evidence of insensitivity and distrust by frontline Military personnel and cold comfort from the civil servants in London.
It may be an isolated case but does nothing for the image of the Nato effort.
The public need to know more about what is happening-good and bad.
More coverage is one way of getting to the truth and the facts.Congrats to Ch 4 in Kabul.
Stories about this which start introducing the possibility that people want asylum play straight into the hands of the BNP.
Some people will make assumptions such as, were these translators to get asylum in the UK, they assume they would be eligible for social benefits, free healthcare, un-employment benefits, etc.. All of which just helps the BNP “turn” elements of the electorate.
The translators have contracts that will specify the basis of their employment. That they might get injured is the nature of the work. That the Taliban might make reprisals is the nature of the job. They can quite rightly expect the British Government to meet the terms of their contracts. The British Government rally should meet the terms of their employment contracts. This report does not say whether the contracts are being broken or not. That is the real issue. Aspects of the work (risk of injury and reprisals) are predictable and to be expected when the translators took up the employment.
Kudos to Nick P-W for an overdue, well-balanced and clearly very courageous piece on the appalling treatment of interpreters in Afghanistan. We are currently trying to raise awareness of the situation of the Iraqi interpreters who missed the asylum cut-off by a few months but who are still living in fear, Please read the post below about two of them Bader & Waleed, exiled in Syria. Is there any way we can persuade C4 to support this cause? Without these fixers, both journalists & the military would be effectively impotent in the theatre of war – whatever you feel about the legitimacy of the campaign itself? Thank you C4 & Nick for running with this, and leading the bulletin with it to boot. Hope we can do something more? Don’t hesitate to contact me. Media140 blog is also supporting btw.
http://www.matthewbennett.es/1690/bader-and-waleed-two-iraqi-interpeters-who-risked-everything-to-help-britain/
Yet again this government fails in its duty to the milirary , for that is what these translators are .Part of our military.
We should be treating their injuries and giving them safe haven in the UK . They have put their lives at risk to help us .
Did this government learn nothing from the Ghurkas?
I myself served with the British Army as an Afghan Interpreter in Helmand and then left the job soon after the people living around me realized about it.
Its been a year or so, since I have quit my job and fled to neighboring Pakistan, yet I sometimes receive threatening letters from pro-Taliban.
I have been flipping through UK asylum websites since then, but have not been helped out.
I also asked a former British Army captain whom I worked with for sponsorship or other legal permit to stay in the UK, but all in vain.
I have worked with British, American, Italian forces as an interpreter since 2002 untill the end of 2008 , in the very dangerious part of aghanistan khost province .
In these six years I have gone through many difficult periods .One night Taliban came to our village fired R P G at our guest room but fortunatly non of us got hurt ( my familly members or me) after that I made decission to leave the country so I did .
Now i am living in another country because of Taliban threats , and I havn,t seen my familly for the last ( 9 ) nine months and maybe I won,t see my family for years untill the situation get better .this is all i have worked with coalition force , and they left me alone.
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