"I feel terrible leaving behind my family, my sick mother" - Afghan Lady Who Fled

Forty-one-years-old rights activist is coping with a crushing sense of guilt her mother and more than a dozen other family members did not make it. They were left behind on the tarmac, Kohistani recalled, so as well as dealing with the pain of separation from her family and home.

Massouda Kohistani managed to fight her way on to a foreign military flight bound for the Gulf as thousands of Afghans crowded outside Kabul airport a year ago were desperately trying to escape the Taliban, and ended up in Spain.

"I feel terrible having left behind my family, my sick mother," Kohistani, who is single, told Reuters from Salamanca, a city west of Madrid, shortly after finishing another emotionally draining video call with her family back in Kabul.

"They don't have enough money to manage expenses...earlier I managed to pay all the bills."

Although there are no accurate estimates, thousands of Afghans fled the country in the chaotic days that followed the hardline Islamist Taliban's military conquest on Aug. 15, 2021.

Reuters spoke with 13 prominent Afghan activists who escaped and who are now living as refugees abroad with no clear idea of when, if ever, they will be able to go home.

The men and women are wary of returning to a country ruled by a government that has restricted basic freedoms since returning to power.

Besmullah Habib, deputy spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said the Taliban had invited all Afghans who fled to return, and that a special commission had been set up to help that happen.

Kohistani, speaking from her apartment in Spain, said she had had her refugee status confirmed, valid for five years.

Spain's Interior Ministry declined to comment on individual cases. According to ministry data, almost 3,000 Afghans have arrived in Spain expressing a wish to seek asylum in the last year. Nearly 2,000 have sought asylum and just over 1,500 have been granted it so far.