The two Afghan athletes who participated in the Tokyo Paralympic Games will be welcomed in France, announced their Sports Minister Roxana Maracineanu.
“They wanted to return to France and we received them like thousands of Afghans,” the minister assured the press.
The two athletes, Zakia Khudadadi and Hossain Rasouli, whose participation in the Paralympic Games was threatened by the arrival of the Taliban to power, landed on French soil shortly after the closing of the event, on Sunday with the closing ceremony.
The two athletes had traveled to Japan in mid-August via France.
The Ministry of Sports, in collaboration with those of Defense and Foreign Affairs, was able to evacuate them from Kabul to Paris a few days before the Paralympic Games began on August 24.
“We managed to get them out of Kabul and now they must rest and train,” Maracineanu said.
In Tokyo-2020 Khudadadi participated in taekwondo competitions and Rasouli, who lost his left arm in the explosion of a mine, in the 400 m.
I followed them. They know that I have a past close to them because I also came to France as a refugee (in 1984 from Romania), so I am very sensitive to their situation, “added the minister, who did not give more details about her condition” for reasons of security”. AFP (HN)