A British couple have been freed from months of detention in Afghanistan, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has said.
Barbie Reynolds, 76, and her husband Peter, 80, were released by the Taliban after eight months of detention. The couple were arrested in February as they travelled to their home in Bamyan province, central Afghanistan.
They have been held since then without charge and for a long period had been separated and detained in a maximum security prison.
They had lived in Afghanistan for nearly two decades, and ran a training and education organisation.
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.
