BILBAO, Spain (Reuters) – Six months after fleeing Taliban rule in her homeland, Nilofar Bayat, former captain of the Afghanistan girls’s wheelchair basketball group, is slowly adjusting to a brand new life in Spain.
“It just isn’t straightforward to hitch a society shortly as a result of every little thing is completely different,” stated Bayat, who got here to Spain along with her husband Ramesh Naik after they acquired presents to play for Bidaideak BSR Bilbao, a combined gender skilled basketball group.
“It is a bit difficult for me find out how to behave with individuals, find out how to reside right here,” the 28-year-old stated.
Bayat, who suffered a spinal twine harm as a two-year-old little one when a rocket hit her household residence in Kabul, left Afghanistan as she feared the Taliban would reverse the progress made in the previous 20 years, particularly on girls’s rights.
Language has been one of many greatest challenges going through the basketball star, who speaks Farsi, Pashto and a few English and has been attending day by day Spanish classes.
“The meals is sweet, the persons are good, however the issue is that I can not share my emotions with them, I can not share my beliefs with them,” she stated.
POLITICAL REFUGEES
Despite the language hurdles, Bayat, who educated as a lawyer in her homeland, hopes to create an affiliation to assist Afghan girls, particularly these with disabilities, in Spain and Afghanistan.
“I wish to keep right here and work for them, for these girls which are right here in Spain: I understand how they begin in life from zero like me,” she stated.
She and Naik have thus far been unable to play in skilled matches resulting from their immigration standing, however Bidaideak president Txema Alonso stated that ought to quickly change now they’ve been recognised as political refugees.
“This opens up the potential of discovering work, acquiring social advantages… and at last, to get a sports activities licence that can enable them to play,” stated Alonso.
With Western international locations slicing financial, cultural and different hyperlinks with the Taliban authorities in Kabul, Bayat is anxious that her persons are being deserted by the skin world.
“Nowadays everyone seems to be forgetting Afghanistan… No one is talking about this, all of the information is about different issues,” she stated. “There’s numerous challenges however nobody speaks (of them).”
(Reporting by Vincent West; Writing by Nathan Allen and Emma Pinedo; Editing by Gareth Jones)
