Kabul, A 29-year-old activist and economics lecturer, Frozan Safi, has been shot and killed in northern Afghanistan, in what appears to be the first known death of a women’s rights defender since the Taliban swept to power almost three months ago.
Frozan Safi’s body was identified in a morgue in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif after she went missing on 20 October. “We recognised her by her clothes. Bullets had destroyed her face,” said Safi’s sister, Rita, who is a doctor.
“There were bullet wounds all over, too many to count, on her head, heart, chest, kidneys and legs.” Her engagement ring and her bag had both been taken, Rita added.
On Thursday, Taliban security forces brought the bodies of two unidentified women who had been shot dead to the Balkh provincial hospital, said Meraj Faroqi, a doctor there. They had been found alongside the bodies of two men in a house in Mazar-i-Sharif, said Zabihullah Noorani, the Taliban’s director for information and cultural affairs in Balkh province, who suggested that they could have been victims of a “personal feud”. Police were investigating the case, he said.
The deaths underscore the pervasive sense of fear in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where a spate of reprisal killings of people linked to the previous government has fostered an atmosphere of impunity and confusion.
Source- The Guardian
