Yahoo – AFP,
Mushtaq Mojaddidi, 29 Oct 2014
Kabul (AFP)
- They have lost limbs to landmines and been disabled by mortar shrapnel, but
Afghanistan's wheelchair women basketball players refuse to call themselves
victims.
Clashing
wheelchairs, hooting supporters and balls swishing through hoops brought a drab
grey court in downtown Kabul alive Wednesday, in the final of the country's
third annual competition organised by the International Committee of the Red
Cross (ICRC).
At the end
of the forty minutes of play, the scoreline read Mazar-i-Sharif 26, Kabul 9 --
but for many of the athletes who took part it was also a personal triumph over
years of adversity.
Mariam
Samimi, a member of the winning side, was just six when she stepped on
undetonated ordnance in her native northern province of Balkh, blowing off her
toes.
It was 1996
and the height of Afghanistan's civil war, when prosthetics and good medical
treatment were in short supply.
Now a
trained social worker as well as a competitive athlete, the 23-year-old said
she wanted others to know that a disability does not mean having to give up on
your dreams.
"Don't
be disheartened, always have courage, and do not say I can't do it. Be
confident all the time, don't feel that you are disabled and (that) I should be
at home," she said.
Afghanistan
has been at war since 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded to prop up the communist
government.
Members of
the Kabul wheelchair basketball team (R) greet members of the
Mazar-i-Sharif
team in the final of the country's third annual competition in Kabul
on October
29, 2014 (AFP Photo/Shah Marai)
|
After the
Soviets withdrew in 1989, a civil war began. The hardline Taliban seized power
in 1996 but were ousted in 2001 by a US-led coalition.
The Taliban
have waged a guerrilla war ever since against Afghan and foreign troops.
The country
is one of the world's most heavily mined nations, with dozens of people still
killed or maimed every month.
It is also
one of just three countries where polio is still a problem, due to the
disruption of health services and Taliban opposition to vaccination.
Nineteen-year-old
Kamila Rahimi, who helped her side to victory with five goals, has been unable
to walk since she was a toddler due to the disease. When she's on the court, it
doesn't matter.
"I
feel very happy to be playing basketball because I like the company of my
teammates. When I laugh, they laugh with me, when I cry, they cry with
me," she said.
In the
final Kabul took an early lead but were comfortably beaten in the end by a more
polished Mazar side, as several players were forced to give up on their hijabs
while whizzing around the court.
The best
players from the two-day tournament, which included the western city of Herat,
will go on to play for the national team, said Alberto Cairo, head of the ICRC
orthopaedic programme in Afghanistan.
Twenty-three-year-old
Aziza Ahmadi, who was paralysed in her left foot when shrapnel from a mortar
attack on her Kabul home hit her 18 years ago, said she hoped to make the
grade.
"My
dream is to go to play in European countries like Italy, Germany and
France," she said with a smile.
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