Group of young Afghan athletes stranded desperately trying to escape the Taliban

After the ban on sport for women, Girls and young women accustomed to mountaineering and physical training six times a week were confined to a crowded party hall near an airport in northern Afghanistan. For them, it’s a different challenge, with their own fate at stake.

This is the new reality for dozens of affiliates at Rise, an organization that teaches athletic skills to Afghan women and girls, as well as leadership guidelines. The group of young people arrived at Mazar-e-Sharif airport 10 days ago to attempt to board evacuation flights that the Taliban have blocked, increasing their fear of being forgotten.

“We try to remind them that we haven’t forgotten them. The world has not forgotten them ”, Ascend founder and CEO Marina LeGree told ABC News. “But some of them are losing hope.”

The first passenger flight after the Taliban took power left Kabul on Thursday. He took American citizens and Westerners on board. Life and death concerns weigh on Afghans still at risk in the country, especially women affiliated with Ascend, who have exercised their independence for the past 20 years, free from oppression by the Taliban government .

Founded in 2014, Ascend is a nonprofit organization based in the United States and operating in Afghanistan. Each year, he recruits a new group of Afghan girls and women aged 15 to 24 to embark on a 24-month mountaineering program. The recruits, who trained at Ghaza Stadium, used by the last Taliban government to carry out public punishments, are tasked with fostering the leadership, volunteerism, and physical and mental well-being of the next generation.

But if Mazar-e-Sharif’s group is left behind, LeGree he’s worried they’ll marry Taliban fighters, or worse.

For more than a week, the Taliban have not authorized more than six flights from Mazar-e-Sharif International Airport in northern Afghanistan, arguing that some evacuees do not have the necessary documents. to go. This confrontation becomes disastrous for some passengers, including the women of Ascend.

LeGree, speaking to ABC News from Naples, where she is trying to get help from the State Department and others, said her group had traveled from Kabul without their families knowing they would be evacuated there a few days ago. You have since been told that the toilets are getting “disgusting” and sleeping is difficult. “I have teenage girls separated from their families in this kind of environment with the Taliban and men everywhere. It’s out of control and it’s not comfortable at all “, noted.

Many women affiliated with Ascend were born earlier or too young to remember the last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan: When women were prohibited from going to school, they were forced to wear a wrap-around burqa and be accompanied by a male parent whenever they went out. Accustomed to their independence, 80% of Ascend graduates entering higher education fear for their future in the new “Interim Taliban government, which so far does not include any women in power. “

LeGree criticized the United States for promising to evacuate Afghans at risk, but to waste “precious time” as the Taliban have become more organized. “There are a lot of women who risk being abandoned if we can’t do something. I am horrified that my government had such a weak response ”, said LeGree.

“We gave you all the details of these people and you allowed them and called them to come, and now you say, ‘You must have travel documents and don’t worry if you have them, can you go.’ ? It’s a total abdication of responsibility, and just – it’s morally disgusting “, she added, angry with her government.

There are at least 1,000 people trying to leave Mazar-e-Sherif on these flights, including at least 19 US citizens and two Green Card holders. They told him that the Taliban entered the airport facilities several times and took people out, but no one knows why.. So for now, they’re waiting.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Thursday that the Biden administration was doing everything possible to get the planes off the ground, including entering into private talks with the Taliban through Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and the new United States mission in Doha.

“The United States pulled all the levers within our grasp to facilitate the departure of these flights from Mazar. The flights, of course, did not take off from Mazar; I can tell you that this has nothing to do with the inaction or action of the US government, and we have made it clear that we want the Taliban to allow those who have expressed their desire to leave in this manner. to do. “ noted.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said on Wednesday that private flights to Mazar-e-Sharif “must move” but that there are “limits” to what the United States can accomplish without ground personnel and without an airport under its control. He said he understood the Taliban opposed flights that combine passengers who have valid travel documents and those who do not.

LeGree said it was not enough. “It was a really hard day for me to see what Blinken said, because I had a lot of hope, he was in Doha, that it would be easy for him to put pressure on the Qataris, to put pressure on the Taliban to let us go, and it didn’t work. It’s not happening. “, noted.

While Ascend has seen successful evacuations of 56 employees and Afghans, LeGree said it would be difficult to sleep until the 88 who requested to be evacuated were out. Despite the difficulties, Ascend plans to continue operating one way or another when the situation in Afghanistan calms down.

There are still some 150 women and alumni affiliated with the program who are left behind and have expressed the hope of continuing its mission. Ascend moved into a new facility this year and LeGree paid the landlord the rent on Wednesday while he keeps the building to them, though she isn’t sure whether she can return to the country she loves too. .

“Don’t assume we’re closing the store. It’s quite the opposite”, said LeGree. “We need the light to continue to shine on Afghan girls and women. The Taliban came to power through harassment, but now they must rule ”

When Jahna Cook and Danielle Jefko of Madison, Wisconsin, USA, learned that Ascend still had women trapped in Afghanistan hoping to evacuate, they felt a call to get involved from home.

“Their stories touched us because we are women, we are mothers and we climb together”, Cook said.

“The freedom, achievement and leadership that these girls have so clearly on the mountain were so easy to identify, and as we watched them grapple with the coming crisis, we knew we had to do something.”

Inspired by an annual 50km run organized by Ascend in the UK, Cook and Jefko planned a 50km run. The race was brought forward by two weeks as the planes carrying Ascend members remained on the ground. The women recorded photos of the girls along their route, he said, to keep their intention in mind.

Both continue to encourage others to donate to the Ascend Fund or to call their elected representatives. “We want to make sure people know this is not a closed topic,” Cook said. “There are still people who desperately need our help.”

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