'We are dying every moment' - the Afghans risking their lives to reach UK

In exchange for the money, migrants like Azaan are promised a route to Europe, handed over from one people smuggler to another along the way.

Back at the wall, the smuggler placed a ladder on the Iranian side, and cut the razor wire at the top to create a path for migrants.

“There were 60 to 70 of us," Azaan recalls. "We climbed to the top and then the smuggler told us to jump.”

For the law and politics graduate, who served his country and led a dignified, comfortable life until August 2021 when the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, it is a humiliating situation to be in.

In its three years in power, the Taliban government has imposed increasing, brutal restrictions on women. According to the UN, a third of the country’s people don’t know where their next meal will come from. And those who worked for the former military fear reprisal.

“The people I fought against for 20 years are now in power," he explains. "Our lives are in danger. My daughter won’t be able to study once she turns 13. And I have no work. I’ll continue to try to leave even if it costs me my life.

"Here we are dying every moment. It’s better to die once, for good."

In Kabul, an elderly father took us to the grave of his son. In his twenties, Javid was a former soldier. Fearing for his life in Taliban controlled Afghanistan, he fled the country in an attempt to make it to the UK.

In March this year, he was among 22 people killed after the rubber dinghy they were in sank in the Aegean sea near Canakkale in Turkey, as they attempted to get to Greece. His pregnant wife was also among the 46 people squeezed on to the boat. They both managed to swim to the shore, but he died of hypothermia.

“From Istanbul, smugglers took us to Esenyurt. From there we were packed into cars like animals. We were dropped off in a forested area. We walked through it for four hours and then we reached the coast from where we were put on the boat,” Javid’s wife says, speaking to us over the phone from Turkey where she’s still living.

In Kabul, Javid’s father broke down inconsolably as he showed us photos of the young man with short black hair wearing track pants and a sweatshirt, posing on a park bench.

“Even now when I remember him the grief is such that it’s only with God's blessing that I survive the torment,” he says.

He believes that foreign countries which fought in Afghanistan bear responsibility for what is happening to Afghans like his son.

“We fought alongside them in the war against terrorism. If we had known we would be betrayed and abandoned, no one would have agreed to join hands with foreign forces.”

According to the UN, Afghans are among the top asylum seekers in the world, and in the UK they are the second largest group arriving in the country in small boats, another journey fraught with peril.

The UK has two resettlement schemes for Afghans. One is for Afghans who worked directly for the British military and British government, and under the second scheme – the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) - those who assisted the UK efforts in Afghanistan, stood up for values of democracy, women’s freedoms and people at risk can be eligible for relocation.

But after the first phase of evacuation in 2021-22, progress has been extremely slow.

This means women like Shahida, who worked in the former parliament of Afghanistan and participated in street protests against the Taliban after they seized power, could not find timely legal routes out of the country. Shahida feared the threat of detention and torture by the Taliban government in Afghanistan every day.

She arrived in the UK in a small boat in May this year, having begun the journey out of Afghanistan more than two years ago. Now in Liverpool, she has applied for asylum.

“I come from a well-known and well-respected family. I’ve never done anything illegal in my life. When authorities would apprehend us during the journey, I would look down out of shame,” she says.

Shahida describes how she crossed the English Channel on an inflatable dinghy, packed in with 64 people. This year has been the deadliest year for migrant crossings across the Channel. More than 50 people have died.

“There was water up to my waist. And because our guide lost the way we floated for hours. I thought this was going to be the end of my life. I’m diabetic so I had to urinate sitting there. And because I was thirsty I had to drink the water I had urinated in. Can you imagine? In Kabul I had everything. My whole life has been taken away from me because the Taliban took over,” she says.

Back in Kabul, Azaan, the former military officer, now wants to sell a small patch of land, the only asset he has left, to gather money to make another attempt.

“This is the only purpose of my life now, to get myself to a safer place.”

All names have been changed.

Additional reporting by Imogen Anderson and Sanjay Ganguly.