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Houstonian determined to bring Afghan team she coached to safety
FOX 26 Anchor Rashi Vats spoke with a Houston woman who is working tirelessly to bring home the team she coached in Afghanistan.
HOUSTON - A Houstonian, who was a former coach for the Afghan Women’s National Football team, is working tirelessly to get the players and their families to safety.
Haley Carter is remarkable, yet she is quick to tell you that the girls she coached in Afghanistan are the ones that deserve the title.
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While that is true, the former Marine says the past four days have been long. She’s been working with people across the world to get them to safety because they are targets.
"The things that these women have endured during the last four days has been horrific. We have military personnel working at various gates, literally pulling them out of sewer water in a canal trying to get them safe into the airport," said Carter who is a Houstonian that helped coach the Afghan Women’s National Football team up until about two years ago. "The bond that we made with those athletes will last forever, so those players and their families will always be a part of my family."
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She talked about how people across the world joined together for the past two weeks to get the players and their families out of harm's way.
"It’s nothing short of a miracle and certainly there was a lot of coordination that was happening on our end, but they were under gunfire multiple times throughout the day and night. They spent over two days outside of the airport trying to get to various gates. Many of them were beat by Taliban at Taliban checkpoints trying to prevent individuals from getting towards the gates," said Carter.
As of 3 a.m. Tuesday morning, 75 people successfully evacuated from Kabul.
The women on the team are in danger. Many still in Kabul and Carter explained why they are targets.
"We are driving social change. These women inherently, because we have empowered them, and because we really pushed them to go after it, to achieve their dreams, to not be afraid to come out of their homes, to not be afraid to pursue a sport, to pursue an education. On the flipside of that, they inherently become a target."
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If you would like to help in the effort to resettle the athletes, a non-profit in Australia is helping them directly.