Rejected by NZ, reporter turns to Taliban

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A pregnant New Zealand journalist says she turned to the Taliban for help and is now stranded in Afghanistan after her home country prevented her from returning due to a bottleneck 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'd once questioned the Taliban about their treatment of women and she was now asking the same questions of her own government.

"When the Taliban offers you -- a pregnant, unmarried woman -- safe haven, you know your situation is messed up," Bellis wrote in her column.

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In her column on Saturday, Bellis said she returned to Qatar in September and discovered she was pregnant with her partner, freelance photographer Jim Huylebroek, a contributor to The New York Times.

She described the pregnancy as a "miracle" after earlier being told by doctors she couldn't have children. She is due to give birth to a girl in May.

Extramarital sex is illegal in Qatar and Bellis said she realised she needed to leave. She repeatedly tried to get back to New Zealand in a lottery-style system for returning citizens but without success.

She said she resigned from Al Jazeera in November and the couple moved to Huylebroek's native Belgium. But she couldn't stay long, she said, because she wasn't a resident. She said the only other place the couple had visas to live was Afghanistan.

Bellis said she spoke with senior Taliban contacts who told her she would be fine if she returned to Afghanistan.

"Just tell people you're married and if it escalates, call us. Don't worry," Bellis said they told her.

She said she sent 59 documents to New Zealand authorities in Afghanistan but they rejected her application for an emergency return.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand’s government on Thursday said it will end its quarantine requirements for incoming travelers and reopen its borders, a change welcomed by thousands of citizens abroad who have endured long waits to return home.

Since the start of the pandemic, New Zealand has enacted some of the world’s strictest border controls. Most incoming travelers need to spend 10 days in a quarantine hotel room run by the military, a requirement that has created a bottleneck at the border.

The measures were initially credited with saving thousands of lives and allowed New Zealand to eliminate or control several outbreaks of the coronavirus.

But, increasingly, the border controls have been viewed as out-of-step in a world where the virus is becoming endemic, and in a country where the omicron variant is already spreading. The bottleneck forced many New Zealanders abroad to enter a lottery-style system to try and secure a spot in quarantine and passage home.

The shortcomings of the system were highlighted over the past week by pregnant New Zealand journalist Charlotte Bellis, who was stranded in Afghanistan after New Zealand officials initially rejected her application to return home to give birth. After international publicity, officials backed down and offered her a spot in quarantine, which she has accepted.