Nilofar Bayat, the Afghan basketball player who fled from the Taliban: "For them, women are not human beings"

Nilofar Bayat was two years old when a rocket from the Taliban regime hit her family's home in Kabul.

One of his brothers died.

The explosion caused irreparable damage to her spinal cord that forever reduced her mobility.

Today, at 29, the aftermath of horror accompanies both her steps and her words.

"For the Taliban, women are not human beings," she tells Nilofar in Madrid, where she received the Committed Optimists Award from the magazine

The road has been long.

In August, when terror took hold in Afghanistan, Nilofar and her husband, Ramish, spent two days at Kabul airport before escaping on a Spanish military plane to Bilbao.

They flew away empty handed after losing their luggage.

Without food, just a little hot water, without a tile to sleep on and with the Taliban trigger threatening death, leaving the airport was like being reborn.

Gone were her family and her life, that of the captain of the Afghan wheelchair basketball team, law student and member of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

As a future, a question mark.

Faced with this question that was her future, the Bidaideak Bilbao BSR club opened its doors to her, a small light of hope.

“My life is much better now.

I feel safe and well”, explains Nilofar, “but I always talk about Afghanistan and I miss my country and my people very much.

Women are imprisoned at home, they do not have access to their basic rights and they are not allowed to carry out any kind of activity.

They are no longer part of society, they do not have access to education, health, sports, work, travel and all basic rights.

The Taliban do not accept women as human beings and behave as if we no longer exist.

They will never accept us."

The first few months in Bilbao she woke up telling her husband that they should go back, be with their own, resist together.

Over time, she tries "a normal life", although her head and heart are still in Afghanistan.

She barely speaks Spanish, although when she can she attends a class, she participates in talks at schools and social centers, and two months ago she received the documentation that will allow her to officially play with Bidaideak next season.

Meanwhile, she is one more in training and is very involved in the team.

After a few months living with other Afghan citizens in an apartment thanks to the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR), Nilofar and Ramish live alone and wait for her parents and siblings to get a visa to reach Spain from Pakistan, where they fled.

“No one is safe in Afghanistan”,

continues his story.

“My friends and teammates don't have a job or income, they can't go to college, they live in a horrible situation.

Women are not allowed to leave the house alone and now it is compulsory to wear the burqa, to cover the whole body and face”.

Nilofar Bayat, captain of Afghanistan's wheelchair basketball women's team, had to flee to Spain with her husband during the Taliban takeover - where she has been welcomed into a new teamhttps://t.co/3SjwQHVkXz pic.twitter.com/xXFcbpXHWm

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) August 24, 2021

They are the two lives of Nilofar.

In Spain, a society opens up to him, but he is overwhelmed by sorrow for the suffering in his country.

To help her family, she has created the

“Most of the time I have nightmares with that horror.

I still remember the moment the Taliban came to Kabul and took control.

I saw how they destroyed my country, my future and my life.

I can't sleep easily.

Someday I would like to return.

My country is my identity.

I am proud to be Afghan and I love my people.

I know that when people hear about Afghanistan the first thing they think is that it is a poor country, but it is a country rich in culture, it has natural beauty, kind people and strong and talented women, and one of the examples is me.

I just hope they don't leave us alone."

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