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 KABUL, Afghanistan — However matters eventually turn out for the Afghan Romeo and Juliet who eloped into hiding, a happily-ever-after ending is eluding many of those whose lives crossed theirs. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The couple, Zakia, 18, and Mohammad Ali, 21, fled their homes in mountainous Bamian Province after her family threatened her with an “honor killing” because she wanted to marry outside her ethnic group, and against her father’s wishes. 
 
 They have stayed in hiding since their escape in March, but an Afghan official who helped Zakia evade almost certain death has now fled Afghanistan and is seeking asylum in Rwanda, where she is expected to arrive Monday. 
 
 Zakia’s family, which included nine other children, many of them young, says it has been driven from its farm, resettling in Kabul to eke out an uncertain existence as day laborers. Mohammad Ali’s family is still on its farm in Bamian, but his father and brother say they have been forced to mortgage most of their land to raise money to help the couple by bribing officials. 
 
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 In part, his family says, the couple’s escape was the only way out because the money to keep paying such bribes had run out, and they feared the courts would return Zakia to her family. 
 
 The couple’s story began last year when Zakia fled her family’s home and asked to be taken in by Mohammad Ali, declaring her love for him. That was such a contradiction of traditional practices that, although Zakia was legally an adult, Mohammad Ali’s father, Anwar, took her to a women’s shelter in Bamian Province. 
 
 Zakia said her family, members of the Tajik ethnic group and Sunni Muslims, opposed the match because Mohammad Ali is a Hazara and Shiite. 
 
 The matter went to court, where judges ordered Zakia returned to her family, despite her age and her wishes. Instead, the head of the Women’s Affairs Ministry office in Bamian, Fatima Kazimi, intervened to keep her protected in a shelter, suspecting Zakia’s family would kill her when they got her home. Her brothers and father have vowed in front of witnesses to kill Zakia and Mohammad Ali, and her own mother has denounced her as a whore. 
 
 But then on March 20, Zakia climbed the wall of the women’s shelter in the middle of the night and eloped with Mohammad Ali, and they have remained in hiding since. 
 
 Ms. Kazimi said that she was blamed for engineering their escape, and that Zakia’s family threatened her life as a result. She made it known that she wanted to flee the country, as did Zakia and Mohammad Ali. 
 
 The American philanthropist Miriam Adelson, wife of the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, expressed an interest in helping the couple and anyone involved in their case, and she persuaded the president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, to offer them asylum. Because Ms. Kazimi had a passport, that was fairly easy to arrange once she got to India, where there were Rwandan consular services. 
 
 Ms. Kazimi confirmed, in an interview a week ago, that she planned to go to Rwanda with her husband and children. 
 
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 The minister of women’s affairs, however, was critical of Ms. Kazimi’s motives. “Her life is not in danger,” said the minister, Husn Banu Ghazanfar. “Our life is in danger because of her. Bamian is one of the safest places in the country; she’s just trying to make a deal for herself.” 
 
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 It was more difficult, however, for Ms. Adelson’s contacts to make arrangements for the couple, since they had no passports. Western embassies have been reluctant to get involved because of criminal charges of bigamy brought against them by Zakia’s family, who claimed she had been married previously. 
 
 Many others have been affected by their escape, as well. Najeeba Ahmadi, who is the head of the shelter that Zakia escaped from, said she had been blamed. “This is a shelter, not a prison, but they blame me from both sides, the government and the family. The family says, ‘We want our daughter back, dead or alive.’ ” 
 
 Meanwhile, Zakia’s family fled Bamian because of the anger among Hazara neighbors who sympathized with the couple. “We left everything, whatever we had in our home, our fields, everything,” said Gula Khan, 21, her brother. “If we were men, we would do something,” and “take our revenge.” 
 
 Mohammad Ali’s relatives say they have been financially ruined by the elopement. His father, Anwar, has mortgaged most of his 28 acres to pay what he said amounted to $22,000 in bribes during the nearly six months that Zakia was in the shelter while the courts tried to compel officials to turn her over to her family. Anwar said he paid bribes to government officials on many levels to prevent that from happening. (Like most of his and Zakia’s family, he goes by one name.) 
 
 “There was no way but to give our lands, all of our best fields,” said Anwar’s son Bismullah. “My father has high blood pressure, but we don’t even have money to take him to the clinic.” 
 
 Mohammad Ali was reached by cellphone in hiding at an undisclosed location. Instead of a ring, his phone plays one of the love songs of Ahmad Zahir, considered the Elvis Presley of Afghanistan, a crooner who sang rock songs based on Persian ballads, and was killed by the communists in 1979. 
 
 “I know it’s extremely hard for my family,” he said. “I feel bad for this; I didn’t know how much my father had to give. You spend your life in hope, and I’m just hoping now that God will help us.” 
 
 He passed the phone to Zakia, who seemed unmoved by word of her family’s new situation. “God be with them, but why should I miss them? I know it’s my family, but they only want to do me harm.” ||||| Photo Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 KABUL, Afghanistan — Zakia and Mohammad Ali, an Afghan couple who married for love despite death threats from her family and criminal charges by the authorities, were reunited on Tuesday after they were both freed from custody. 
 
 “The Afghan government did the right thing,” said Manizha Naderi, executive director of the aid group Women for Afghan Women, whose lawyer, Shukria Khaliqi, won dismissal of the charges against the couple. “They saw the injustice in this case and decided to act.” 
 
 Mohammad Ali, 21, and Zakia, 18, were reached separately by telephone before being reunited. (Like many Afghans, they do not use surnames.) 
 
 “Before I was arrested I was 100 percent happy,” Mohammad Ali said. “Now, when my wife is released, I will be 1,000 percent happy.” 
 
 Zakia said: “After I get released, I hope we can have a happy life again and go and live in a place that is safe for us. If my family catches us, they won’t leave us alive.” 
 
 The couple eloped in March, but Zakia’s father pressed bigamy charges against them, claiming she had already been married to her nephew; she asserted that she was only engaged to her nephew, and that was against her will and without her knowledge. Several of her male family members publicly vowed to carry out an honor killing against her, angry not only that she had defied her family, but also that she had married someone from the Hazara ethnic group. She is Tajik and Sunni Muslim; he is a Hazara and a Shiite. 
 
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 They remained in hiding, first in the mountains of central Afghanistan, and later in Kabul, until Mohammad Ali was spotted by his in-laws on June 6 and dragged to a police station. His wife then voluntarily turned herself in to the custody of a women’s shelter run by Women for Afghan Women, fearing arrest or, worse, attack by her family. 
 
 Women for Afghan Women, an Afghan charity supported by private donations and some American government funding, runs seven shelters in Afghanistan, as well as child support centers and family counseling centers that try to find peaceful settlements to domestic disputes. 
 
 While the couple were in custody, many Afghans began agitating on social media for their release, and the case received extensive coverage in the Afghan news media. Most Afghans have their marriages arranged by their families, but love matches are increasingly common among young people. 
 
 Last week, Mohammad Ali was released from custody on an order from the office of Attorney General Mohammad Ishaq Aloko. And after Mohammad Ali produced documentation of his marriage to Zakia, the charges against her were dismissed as well after a brief hearing on Tuesday. Ms. Khaliqi said the authorities had offered to draw up a warrant for the arrest of Zakia’s father for trying to force her to marry against her will, which is a crime under Afghanistan’s Elimination of Violence Against Women law. 
 
 Ms. Naderi said: “The attorney general went out of his way to make sure that they don’t get punished for a crime that they didn’t commit. We are grateful to him and the E.V.A.W. unit at the attorney general’s office for expediting their case.” 
 
 Zakia said she would decline to press charges against her father. “I know my father and mother will not even want to see me,” she said. “But I don’t want trouble for them.”
– An Afghan couple who married for love—and wound up getting arrested for it—reunited yesterday, after both were freed from custody, the New York Times reports. Mohammad Ali, 21, a Shiite Hazara, and Zakia, 18, a Sunni Tajik, eloped in March and went on the run from their families and the law, prompting the Times to dub them "the Afghan Romeo and Juliet." Zakia's father pressed charges against them for bigamy, saying Zakia had already been married to her nephew—she says she was merely engaged to him against her will. Six of Mohammad Ali's male relatives apprehended him on June 6 and took him to police, who charged him with kidnapping. Zakia then turned herself in to a women's shelter, where the Times explains she was "effectively kept under a form of house arrest." But the case attracted widespread media attention, particularly in Afghanistan, and Afghanistan's attorney general intervened, ordering Mohammad Ali's release last week; the charges against Zakia were dismissed yesterday. He also offered to file charges against Zakia's father for trying to force her to marry against her will—a crime under Afghanistan's Elimination of Violence Against Women law—but she declined. "If my family catches us, they won't leave us alive," she says, and she never expects to see her parents again. "But I don't want trouble for them."