PESHAWAR, June 6: Two Afghan youths hailing from southern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan on Monday sought asylum in the Netherlands, saying “our lives are not safe in our homeland”. Addressing a press conference here at the Peshawar Press Club, Abdul Mateen, 30, and Rokhan Ghamshareek, 26, said they had been granted political asylum in the Netherlands before the fall of the Taliban government.

However, that status was withdrawn in the post-Taliban period as, according to international community, normalcy had returned to Afghanistan, they added.

Abdul Mateen said he was a resident of district Khogiani of the Nangarhar province. For the past three years he had been living in the Netherlands, but returned home on hearing news that normalcy had returned to Afghanistan.

“My house is situated in front of the office of Afghan peace force. One day, some unidentified gunmen stormed into my house and occupied it,” said Mateen.

He said he was wounded in the attack and showed scars on his body to newsmen.

After spending five days in a Jalalabad hospital “I was shifted to Medicare Hospital Peshawar”. But, he added, he kept receiving threats.

“Now I face threat to my life while Pakistani authorities are flexing muscles for forceful repatriation of Afghan refugees,” he said. “I cannot go back to my country where the law and order situation is not good”.

Rokhan Ghamshareek, who hails from village Kozbiyar, narrated an identical story.

He said that during the Taliban regime he migrated to the Netherlands and started living a better life there. But after four years, I was repatriated to Afghanistan.

“Some people attacked my house and took me away to an unknown place. They kept me captive for four months and demanded one million Afghanis as ransom money which I could not pay,” he said.

Then they threatened me to quit the country “or I would be killed”.

The two Afghan nationals spoke of human rights violations and worsening law and order situation in their homeland.

They appealed to the government of the Netherlands to provide them asylum.