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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
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Rachelle Abbott

The Leader podcast: How I escaped the Taliban

Marzia Babakarkhail is a former Afghan judge who fled Afghanistan when the Taliban targeted her for assassination during their first time in power in 1996.

In this edition of the Leader podcast, she tells us why she was targeted for her work helping divorced women and how she hid for five hours while nine Taliban soldiers ransacked her house looking for her.

In an extraordinarily powerful interview, she tells us how she fled that night in a terrifying nine hour car journey across the country and into Pakistan.

Listen here:

She now lives in the UK and says she fears for the friends she still has in her home country, but has hope that the people of Afghanistan will overcome “the darkness of this time.”

You can find us on your Spotify Daily Drive or wherever you stream your podcasts.

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