The dramatic story of a mayor of Afghanistan mobilizes a people of Spain

Marina Artusa

08/21/2021 8:00

• Clarín.com

• World

Updated 08/21/2021 8:00 AM

“If you speak to her again, please tell her to go urgently to the airport and apply for asylum.

I'm trying to get the government of Spain to help me so that we can receive it in our town, ”

Miguel Navarré Sancho, the mayor of a Valencian municipality

, tells

Clarín

, agitated, who, moved by the testimony he read in this newspaper of the Afghan mayor Zarifa Ghafari, threatened by the Taliban advance, offers to meet her.

“I made a request to the government of Spain to inquire about the whereabouts of Zarifa Ghafari.

And if she wants it, she can ask for asylum.

She is the one who has to ask for it.

For her and for her entire family, ”insists the mayor, while news from Kabul affirms that the Taliban blocked access to the airport.

“She is an icon in the

fight for women's rights

and her life is in danger.

She is a mayor like me and I know what it means to represent many people.

How can we not offer help? ”, Says Navarré Sancho, who heads the government of Casinos, a town of 3,100 inhabitants of the Valencian Community.

Famous for the nougats and dumplings that its people make for Christmas, Casinos is in the Campo de Turia region and 6,000 kilometers from Afghanistan, from where Zarifa, the only mayor and the youngest in her country, confessed to

Clarín

: to the bullfights, trying to save my life and that of my family ”.

Zafira Ghafari, mayor of Maidan Shar, has not answered calls for days.

Photo: The New York Times)

Letters and rush orders

Since reading Zarifa's life story published on Thursday in

Clarín

, Navarré Sancho sent official letters to the Government Delegation of the Valencian Community, the Ministry of the Interior and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, requesting help to rescue the Afghan mayor.

“As the mayor of a small town, I ask you to take all steps with the Spanish government and the Spanish diplomatic mission in Afghanistan so that the until now mayor, Zarifa Ghafari, her husband and children can leave the country and establish them in a safe place. and they are granted political asylum in accordance with Article 38 of Law 12/2009 ”, requests the letter that the mayor sent to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

This Friday, Navarré Sancho tried to contact the Spanish embassy in Kabul by mail.

But the message came back rejected, as if the official email from the Spanish embassy in Afghanistan was blocked.

“As mayor, it would hurt me if the only Afghan mayor, who is the voice of those who will be oppressed by the new Taliban government, is assassinated or her rights trampled on at the hands or by order of the new regime that has just installed itself in Afghanistan. ”Says one of the letters sent by the mayor of Casinos.

Zarifa, 27, and Navarré Sancho have been in office for more or less the same time.

The Afghan, which since January 2018 governs a municipality in which 35,000 people live, that of Maidan Shahr, was not voted by the neighbors: it was appointed by President Ashraf Ghani, who left Afghanistan when the Taliban took Kabul, the end of last week.

A march in support of the rights of women in Afghanistan.

this Friday in Malaga, Spain.

Photo: REUTERS

Navarré Sancho, a graduate in Law and Humanities, belongs to the Compromís party and has been mayor of Casinos since June 2019.

Help from Germany

A German non-governmental organization would also be managing how to get Zarifa out of Afghanistan and land her in Frankfurt.

“It is not a question of only coming to our town.

Whoever helps her, who leaves her country alive and can continue to defend her ideals, ”says the mayor of Casinos.

Zafira has not spoken on her social networks since Saturday, August 14.

On Tuesday 17 Clarín managed to contact her and agree with her a talk that has not yet materialized.

Since then, Zarifa has not responded.

And his silence anguish.

Madrid, correspondent

CB

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