Honored in 2003 in Montpellier, a former Afghan mayor finds refuge there 18 years later

In archive photos, he receives the medal of the city of Montpellier (Hérault) from the hands of his mayor Georges Frêche: eighteen years later, the former mayor of a city in Afghanistan is preparing to do so. to return, to find refuge there. For the last stage of a perilous journey, Hakimullah Ghazniwal, 60, will travel from Macedonia aboard the plane of the Montpellier handball club (MHB), Montpellier town hall told AFP. Accompanied by his wife, his seven children and a daughter-in-law, he is expected overnight from Wednesday to Thursday. Hakimullah Ghazniwal was mayor of Ghazni, 150 km south of Kabul, from 2002 to 2008, then government adviser, until the arrival of the Taliban in mid-August.

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On August 21, he launched an appeal for help, via the generic email address of the city of Montpellier: “

”he said. addressing the current mayor, the socialist Michaël Delafosse.

Since that day, the municipality has mobilized to facilitate his exit from Afghanistan, with the help of the NGO Open Society, explained to AFP a relative of Michaël Delafosse: Hakimullah Ghazniwal and his family "

”.

A long agreement

The former mayor and his relatives finally reached Mazar-i-Sharif by bus in northern Afghanistan on October 3, from where they took a flight to Tbilisi (Georgia) on October 8, then Skopje, where, coincidentally, the MHB is playing on Wednesday.

We have to go back twenty years to trace the links between Montpellier and Ghazni.

In the wake of September 11, 2001, the Taliban were driven from power by an international coalition and Georges Frêche, mayor of Montpellier since 1977 (died in 2010), intends to participate in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

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A delegation from Montpellier went there, then buses were sent to Ghazni.

And it was in 2003 that the mayor of this Afghan locality in turn went to Montpellier, received the city's medal there, and was already attending an MHB match.

"

" explains the current town hall.