The Afghan situation comes home to Greenwich

A few days ago, I received an urgent email from my local authority.

“As you know from the news,” it said, “there is a massive effort for donation (sic) for the Afghanistan Refugees as many of them are coming to the country with nothing. Greenwich has had a mass of donations but the problem is….. urgent help is needed sorting everything”. The email ended on a plaintive note: “This is a massive task and any help you could give would be very greatly appreciated.”

As a doughty volunteer for the past 18 months, I signed on.

What I found when I arrived at the specified venue was remarkable. The grand hotel near the tube station is now the temporary home of 600 Afghan families, who are quarantining and no doubt traumatised at what has happened to their country and to them. They had just arrived in Britain and, as officials told me, most had “nothing but the clothes they came over in”.

On one of the floors of the hotel, I found a massive throbbing operation. Under the supervision of officials, vo…