Many LGBTQ+ people have gone into hiding since the Islamist militia seized power last month, fearing a return to the group’s harsh 1996-2001 rule when it enforced a radical form of sharia, or Islamic law. “(Foreign governments) should have helped us to get out of here,” one gay student said by phone from Kabul, after trying unsuccessfully to board one of the last evacuation flights out of the country last week. “Things are becoming more hopeless every day (and) now we have been abandoned,” the student, whose name and age have been withheld to protect his identity, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
He said guards at Hamid Karzai International Airport, which has been out of action this week, turned him back despite having the correct