Ten girls aged between 13 and 18 from the Afghan robotics team have safely arrived in Qatar. The team first emerged in 2017 during an international robotics competition in Washington, according to Business Insider. Thousands of Afghans are trying to flee following the collapse of the government and the rapid takeover by the Taliban last week.
The mother organization of the team, the Digital Citizen Fund, expressed gratitude to the Qatari government, which they said assisted in expediting the girls' visa processes and even sent a plane to Kabul airport, despite the cancellation of outgoing flights from Afghanistan.
Elizabeth Schaffer Brown, a board member of the Digital Citizen Fund, told NBC News that the organization has been working since early this month to ensure the safe evacuation of the girls to Qatar once it became clear that the Taliban would take control. She added, "In the end, the girls saved themselves; without their efforts and bravery in pursuing education, they would not have been able to leave the country."
It is still unclear where the girls will live after their evacuation, but Schaffer Brown told the Washington Post that "the current priority is to raise scholarship funds to help the students continue their education."
Since May, the Taliban has been expanding its influence in Afghanistan, coinciding with the final phase of the scheduled withdrawal of U.S. forces, which is set to be completed by August 31. Situations in Kabul, home to 6 million people, deteriorated quickly last Sunday as the Taliban took control after seizing regional capitals in recent weeks. The president, Ashraf Ghani, fled the country, stating later that he left "to prevent bloodshed."
