Afghan woman journalist among boat wreck deaths near Italy last week

New Delhi: Torpekai Amarkhel, a female journalist and former presenter at National Radio Television Afghanistan and former U.N. employee, was among the victims in last week’s boat wreck off the southern coast of Italy, where around 80 Afghan refugees died.

Amarkhel was a well-known face in Afghanistan and worked as a presenter for RTA for four years. She also worked for the Public Relations Department of the United Nations Assistance Mission (UNAMA).

Amarkhel escaped from Afghanistan through Turkey when the Taliban forces took over power in 2021.

On a wooden boat, she was on board with her family and other Afghan refugees to join her brother, who lives in Italy. Amarkhel four other family members, including her husband and children, also died in the boat tragedy.

On February 25, a wooden sailboat carrying around 250 migrants crashed onto rocks in rough seas off southern Italy. According to reports, around 80 of the victims were Afghan nationals.

Thousands of migrants, mostly Afghans, have reached Italy by boat over the past decade, fleeing conflict and poverty in Afghanistan. The U.N. refugee agency has said almost half of the arrivals by sea between Turkey and Italy last year were Afghans.

Hundreds of journalists have left Afghanistan after the Taliban took over power in Afghanistan in August 2021

Human Rights Watch said in their last year report said, “Taliban authorities have carried out far-reaching censorship and violence against Afghan media in district and provincial centres, limiting critical reporting in Afghanistan.”

The situation facing journalists outside Kabul appears much worse than inside the capitol, particularly for women. Journalists in the provinces have described Taliban members threatening, detaining, and beating them and their colleagues trying to report the news.

Many journalists have felt compelled to self-censor and write only Taliban statements and official events. Women journalists have faced the most intense repression.

Nearly all women journalists have lost their job in Afghanistan or left the profession since the Taliban takeover in August 2021. Also, hundreds of media outlets have closed.

In August 2022, CPJ published a special report about the media crisis in Afghanistan, showing a rapid deterioration in press freedom since the Taliban retook control of the country one year earlier, marked by censorship, arrests, assaults, and restrictions on women journalists.