A pregnant New Zealand journalist said she turned to the Taliban for help and is now stranded in Afghanistan after her country barred her from returning due to a backlog of people in its coronavirus quarantine system.
In a column published in The New Zealand Herald on Saturday, Charlotte Bellis said it was “brutally ironic” that she once questioned the Taliban about the way it treated women and now has the same questions about her own government.
“When the Taliban offers you — a pregnant, unmarried woman — a safe place, you know your situation is a mess,” Bellis wrote in her column. New Zealand’s COVID-19 response minister, Chris Hipkins, told the Herald that his office had asked officials to review whether they followed proper protocols in the Bellis case, “which at first glance seemed to require further explanation.” ”.
New Zealand has managed to contain the spread of the virus to a minimum during the pandemic and has only reported 52 deaths among its five million inhabitants.
Stories of citizens stranded abroad in dire conditions have embarrassed Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her government.
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