#nowzad

And if you can’t donate but can still spread the word about them particularly on twitter please do so. More info on that is on their statement here:

Nowzad statement

This is a recent BBC news article about them

If you use Twitter, please can you tweet these British politicians today 17/08/2021:

Rt Hon Wendy Morton

Rt Hon James Cleverly

Rt Hon Dominic Raab

Rt Hon Zac Goldsmith

Rt Hon Lord (Tariq) Ahmad

Rt Hon Ben Wallace

to ask them to add their voices in the Emergency debate in Parliament on Wednesday to allow Afghan veterinary staff working for British animal rescue charities, such as the lady in the photo who works for Nowzad, to be added to the rescue lists and evacuated to the UK.

A week ago these animal welfare groups in Afghanistan - Nowzad, the Mayhew, Warpaws / Kabul Small Animal Rescue were taking in homeless dogs and cats, offering vaccinations and neutering as normal : now they are desperately fundraising to try to get their people (and if possible some of the animals too) out of the hands of the Taliban. Last time the Taliban were in power, they banned pet ownership. Dogs were considered vermin: working with them, particularly for highly qualified women, puts humans and animals in extreme danger.

Nowzad is an animal rescue charity based in Kabul, Afghanistan, founded in 2007 by former British Royal Marine Sgt. Pen Farthing.

As a British citizen, is valiantly refusing to evacuate Afghanistan and leave behind his Afghan staff, their families and the animals at the rescue centre.

Nowzad are desperately trying to raise the funds to charter a cargo plane to evacuate the animals, staff and their families to the United Kingdom, where the veterinary staff have already been offered jobs.

These brave people, particularly the female veterinary staff, deserve to be helped. Please consider donating anything you can spare via the Nowzad website, https://www.nowzad.com/donate , or at least by sharing the message and spreading awareness of their need for help.

For UK residents, please consider sharing this story with your MPs to try and make this story one of the topic discussed in parliament tomorrow.

Operation Ark has not gone to plan.

On Thursday night the whole of the Nowad team, their families and the animals were inside the airport circle in Kabul, but were refused entry due to a change in America's rules (two hours previously!) as to which Afghans were allowed to travel.

Despite having all the required paperwork to travel to the UK, the Nowzad team and their families have been left behind in Afghanistan because they do not have visa-stamped passports - an American requirement.

They were forced to head back to the rescue centre, narrowly avoiding getting caught up in the terror attacks that evening. Only then did the Ministry of Defence offer to help ensure their safe passage, by which point it was too late to secure the passage for the Afghans. Too little too late. And still patronising referring to the charity's animals as "Pen's pets", when they know full well that this has been a humanitarian mission from day 1.

Pen and the charity's dogs and cats are on their way to the UK. That is brilliant news. But I'm devastated for those left behind. Veterinary surgeons, veterinary nurses and animal care staff who had job offers waiting for them in the UK have all lost out on a chance at a better life in safety. Brave, selfless people who told Pen to go without them and take as many dogs and cats as he could. They deserved better.

CW for article: references to human deaths, human suffering, animal deaths

“Caring about animals doesn't mean not caring about people, I don't understand where all this is coming from. It's the people that haunt me.”