Afghan women athletes who thought they were headed for Canada plead with Ottawa: 'Don't break our hearts'
CBC
A star of Afghanistan's national women's basketball team thought she would be in Canada by now, building a new life with her family after they were forced to flee their old one.
Instead, they're stuck living in a northern Albania hotel, mired in uncertainty.
Dozens of female Afghan athletes who bravely represented their country at home and abroad are at the same hotel and in the same predicament — anxious for any news about their futures as they grow increasingly concerned for the family members they left behind.
"It's very difficult," the basketball player said. "We are waiting with no information."
CBC News interviewed two women from the group and spoke to several others. Their identities are being concealed, as they fear their trailblazing involvement in women's sports and activism for equal rights will make their loved ones a target for Afghanistan's Taliban rulers.
WATCH | Afghan athletes in limbo after being flown out of Kabul:
"It wasn't very easy in Afghanistan for a woman to take part in sports, but we fought for our rights, for our education," the basketball player said. "When the Taliban came, we lost everything."
And so, fearing for their lives, they were desperate to flee.
Their evacuation from Afghanistan was facilitated by FIFA, the international soccer governing body — with the help of a Canadian document.
The athletes said they believed the document meant they had been granted a visa — but that wasn't the case.
"I told my family, 'I'm going to start a new life in Canada and then I will save your life,'" said another woman from the group.
Instead, they've been living in limbo for more than three months — devastated that their dreams of life in Canada were dashed by a seeming misunderstanding over paperwork in the frantic weeks following the Taliban victory.
They're now pleading with Ottawa to resettle them.
"You helped make us powerful before," the basketball player said of the impact Canada's mission in Afghanistan had on the lives of women.
