The son of a British couple detained by the Taliban five months ago has told the BBC that he fears they may die in prison.
Peter Reynolds, 80, and Barbie, 76, were arrested on 1 February while returning to their home in central Bamiyan province, Afghanistan. It is not known exactly why they were detained.
Their son Jonathan Reynolds said their health was rapidly deteriorating, with his father suffering serious convulsions and his mother “numb” from anaemia and malnutrition.
The Taliban’s foreign minister said they were receiving medical care and that “efforts are under way to secure their release, but the process is not complete”.
“All their human rights are being respected,” Amir Khan Muttaqi told reporters in Kabul on Wednesday, adding that the pair had “occasional contact” with family.
The UN warned on Monday that the couple could perish “in such degrading conditions” if they do not receive medical care at once, calling their detention “inhumane”.
Mr Reynolds said it had been a “harrowing and surreal” five months waiting for the release of his parents, who lived in Afghanistan for 18 years, where they had citizenship and ran education projects.
One of these projects involved training women and children and had apparently been approved by local authorities, despite the Taliban banning education for girls over 12-years-old and not allowing women to work.
Mr Reynolds said his parents had been held in harsh conditions – including a maximum security prison – despite being “deemed innocent” by a judge and facing no charges.
“My dad was chained to murderers and criminals,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, adding that they had at one point been held in a basement for six weeks without sunlight, and not allowed out.
The couple revealed “just how bad their health is” when they last had contact with their children on 15 June, Mr Reynolds said.
“My dad’s health is deteriorating fast in particular,” he said of the 80-year-old, who has a history of minor heart attacks.
“Now he’s maybe got something like early Parkinson’s – tremors and shakes down the right side of his body, his arms and face,” he told BBC Breakfast.
He added that his father spent “half an hour convulsing on the prison floor” before his wife called for a prison guard to move him onto a “mattress pad on the floor” serving as a bed.
Mrs Reynolds “has blue hands and feet to do with anaemia, malnutrition, just not getting the right healthcare,” he added.