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Updated August 27th, 2021 at 15:30 IST

Afghan girls robotics team reaches Mexico

An all-woman Afghan robotics team known as the “Afghan Dreamers” are now safe in Mexico, recalling the anxiety-filled times they endured after the Taliban took control of the country.

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An all-woman Afghan robotics team known as the “Afghan Dreamers” are now safe in Mexico, recalling the anxiety-filled times they endured after the Taliban took control of the country.

The four young women, accompanied by a sister and another man, arrived Tuesday after travelling through six countries to reach Mexico.

They fled Afghanistan after the takeover of the country earlier this month by the Taliban, who have been hostile to women working or going to school after a certain age.

"We didn't want our story to be ended by the Taliban," said Saghar, who asked that her last name not be used to avoid endangering her family members who remain in Afghanistan.

They said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press that they intended to keep working, and save those who were left behind.

“We wanted to continue the path that we started to continue to go for our achievements", said Saghar. "So that’s why we decided to leave Afghanistan and go for somewhere safe.”

Saghar, 17, along with her teammates has competed in robotics competitions and won an award in 2017.

The young women - who have embroidered team uniforms - had won international attention, and had recently taken on the challenge of constructing ventilators out of car parts for COVID-19 patients.

But their very success made it dangerous for them in Afghanistan.

"We were the persons who decided to have the high achievements" said Saghar, "and now we are the people who are putting in danger our families because of our achievements. And that's why we want an opportunity for them to be saved as well."

The women had decided to flee a month or two before their western city of Herat fell to the Taliban in early August; the tension had become unbearable.

Mexico’s interior secretary, Olga Sánchez Cordero, said Wednesday that Mexico would grant asylum “to those Afghan citizens who require it.”

Mexico welcomed another group of 124 Afghan media workers and their families Wednesday after the group fled their country because of the Taliban takeover. The Foreign Relations Department said the Afghans had worked for The New York Times and “various media outlets” and had requested humanitarian visas because of the Taliban’s hostility toward journalists.

Mexico's offer of safe haven to Afghan journalists is a sharp contrast in a country that is unable to protect its own reporters.

But Mexico said the Afghan Dreamers will be allowed to choose where they want to go, which country they choose to seek asylum in, and what they want to do.

“Mexico is not expecting them to stay or go, but rather that they decide what they want to do," said Assistant Foreign Relations Secretary Martha Delgado.

For now, the young women are thinking about everything they had to leave behind, and all the other Afghans condemned to live under the Taliban's harsh rules.

 

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Published August 27th, 2021 at 15:30 IST

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