Afghanistan: IOC to provide aid to Afghan athletes left behind

Following the evacuation of thousands of Afghans from the country back in August, there are still those that were not able to make the evacuation. The International Olympic Committee has recently announced that it will be providing aid to Afghan athletes who remain in Afghanistan.

The IOC announced this week that it would be providing humanitarian assistance to Afghan athletes who were not able to make the evacuation. The committee assisted in evacuating around 300 members of Afghanistan’s sports community. The panel reserved $560,000 of humanitarian aid for 2,000 Afghan Olympic and Paralympic athletes and will be distributed by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

“Thanks to our discreet diplomacy, the Taliban accept and support the delivery by the IOC of humanitarian aid to members of the Olympic community who still live in Afghanistan,” said IOC president Thomas Bach, following the second day of the executive board meeting where the amount for humanitarian assistance was reserved.

Around 300 Afghan athletes, coaches, and officials were able to be evacuated from Afghanistan on humanitarian visas that were obtained by the National Olympic Committees from their governments. Bach said that the committee is reaching out to several governments to obtain more humanitarian visas for the athletes that remain in Afghanistan.

The day prior to the announcement, Bach said that the committee has held talks with the Taliban back in November in Qatar about those who remain behind, especially Afghan women and girls.

“We have clearly explained to them that free access to sport, without any gender, ethnic, religious or other discrimination, is fundamental for the respect of the Olympic Charter,” said Bach.

In other related news, around 100 former British Council staff are still in Afghanistan and are in hiding, The Guardian reports. The staff was employed to teach British values, and the English language remained in hiding in Afghanistan, having been refused by officials the right to come to the UK.

Joseph Seaton, the British Council Afghanistan English manager as well as its deputy director, wrote to cabinet members about their situation in the hopes of shoring up support. The staff applied to come to the UK via the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy that was set up early this year. According to Seaton, their applications are still unprocessed and have not been responded to for months since they were submitted.