A pair of Aberystwyth business owners are this week closing their restaurant and heading into Afghanistan after feeling compelled to help.

Sándor and Kata, of Hungarian restaurant Paprika, were due to travel to Afghanistan yesterday to provide medical aid.

While this is not the couple’s first aid mission, it will be the first time they are going out completely alone.

“We are not doing this for the profit, or for the thanks, or for the marketing. We just want to be able to help. This is very important to us,” Sándor, who is a trained doctor, said.

“We are very nervous. This is not our first mission; seven years ago we were in Syria to help in the Syrian civil war. We stayed there for one and a half years.

“Nine years ago we were in Senegal, to help during the Ebola crisis. Fifteen years ago we travelled to Sri Lanka to help during the tsunami on 26 December 2004.

“Before now, the Senegal mission was the most difficult. But this will definitely be worse.

“In every other mission, we had political and diplomatic protection. All the time the UN, the US army or the governments were there to help. But now nobody is there to help us. We are completely alone.

“If everybody thinks that it’s dangerous and doesn’t go out, then nobody would help.

“We’re not taking cameras, phones or even coats, we’re just going in with T-shirts that say ‘Doctor’ on the back.

“We are jumping into the deep end, completely blind.”

Read the full story in this week’s Cambrian News