The captain of the Afghan wheelchair basketball team, Nilofar Bayat, arrived in Madrid this Friday afternoon in the second plane of the Spanish armed forces that took off from Kabul airport, at 6:30 a.m., with a group of 110 evacuated people, confirmed the president of the Higher Sports Council, José Manuel Franco.
“The second plane arrives in Spain with 148 evacuees. Among them, Nilofar Bayat, captain of the wheelchair team, an example in the world of sports. Welcome! ”Franco wrote on his social networks.
Of this second group of 110 people, 50 are expected to remain in Spain.
Among the passengers there are personnel who have collaborated with Spanish institutions, such as Aecid or Defense, and also Nilofar Bayat, who has received a couple of offers from Spanish wheelchair basketball clubs to join their squad.
🙏 “I JUST THINK OF KEEPING ALIVE”.
🎙 INTERVIEW #JUGONES to Nilofar Bayat, Afghan basketball player: “Help.” pic.twitter.com/ZvEWY33wLy
– JugoneslaSexta (@JugoneslaSexta) August 17, 2021
The Bidaideak Bilbao BSR club has communicated “its full readiness” to incorporate Bayat, who asked for help to leave her country like thousands of women who fear for their lives since the Taliban took Kabul and controlled most of Afghanistan.
The president of the Basque club, current league champion, has already sent his request to the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation and the Spanish Basketball Federation so that the captain of the national team “can reside in Bilbao” and play at the Bidaideak next season.
Also CB Minusval Melilla, from Group C of the Second Division of wheelchair basketball, has offered to welcome Nilofar Bayat into his team.
The Melilla club issued a statement on Tuesday in which it announced that due to the “armed conflict” that Afghanistan is suffering and the situation of women and children, it has been made available to the Spanish Sports Federation for People with Physical Disabilities (FEDDF) and from the Higher Sports Council (CSD), to whom he conveyed his offer to welcome her into his team “as an act of solidarity” towards universal adapted sport “.
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