The city of Herat, home to more than two million people, has taken on an atmosphere of anxiety, suffocation and despair. Residents say daily life under the relentless decrees of the Taliban’s Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice grows narrower and darker by the day.

Ahead of International Students’ Day on 17 November, the Human Rights Activists’ Union said in a statement that the Taliban, by depriving girls of education and closing university doors, have committed “cultural genocide” and “gender apartheid”.

In an unprecedented and contentious move, officers from the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice detained dozens of women and girls on Saturday evening (November 15) after they had gone with their families to the restaurants in Herat’s Taraqi Park to have a meal.

Amnesty International Italy has warned that the Taliban’s new restriction in Herat, which bans women without a burqa from entering hospitals, has put the lives of thousands of women and girls at risk.