Girls in Afghan robotics team arrive to Mexico

BOGOTA, Colombia

Mexico has accepted five members of an Afghan girls robotics team who arrived in the country after their evacuation from the Taliban-controlled Afghan capital Kabul.

"Welcome to your home," Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard told the group -- the first to arrive in the country from Afghanistan -- of five women and a man in the capital Mexico City on Tuesday.

The young women fled the war-torn country after the Taliban took control of Kabul as the Taliban have been hostile to women working or going to school after a certain age.

Ebrard stated that Mexico would grant them whatever legal status they consider best, which could include giving them asylum or refugee status.

The robotics team made up of girls as young as 14 had gained attention across the world in 2017 when they traveled to the US to take part in an international competition.

Martha Delgado, undersecretary for Human Rights, said in her speech that the Afghan women admitted into the country were members of the robotics team that contributed to the production of internationally awarded medical ventilators.

Delgado emphasized that women could obtain a humanitarian visa, adding that, in line with this tradition of solidarity and in line with the Mexican government's feminist foreign policy, they have conducted various diplomatic efforts to ensure that they bring them to Mexico through safe passage.

One of the women, whose name was not released, also told the press that after the Taliban took control of their country, Afghan women once again faced many difficulties.

"You saved not only our lives, but also our dreams that we wanted to fulfill. We thank God that we are alive and that our story will not end sadly because of the Taliban," she said.

*Writing and contribution by Dilara Hamit