An 11-year-old Oklahoma mother flew to Afghanistan earlier this month to rescue ten members of the country’s all-female robotics team and hoping to save more when the Taliban take power in Kabul.
Allyson Reneau, a 60-year-old Harvard student with a master’s degree in international relations and U.S. space policy, was tasked with trying to save members of the Afghan women’s robotics team, according to NBC.
He flew to Qatar on August 9 after calling a former roommate at the U.S. embassy “Ave Maria” to help them get the advancing Taliban girls, known for their oppressive treatment in the United States. women.
Reneau had been in touch with the team, made up of girls aged 16 to 18, since 2019, when he worked on the board of directors of Explore Mars and met with the girls when they attended the annual Humans conference. to Mars of the organization.
The team was hailed in the Western media as the future of the war-ravaged country, as well as a shining example of how women’s rights had improved after the U.S. invasion after 9/11.
He said he “could not shake” the feeling that the girls were in danger as they watched the news of the insurgent army advancing in early August. The first step he took was to call Senator Jim Inhofe [R-Okla.], a ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, but that “leadership cooled” when the senator was “overwhelmed by the need to help our American citizens,” Reneau told NBC.
Then she decided to try herself, making a flight to the Middle East, but still thousands of miles from Afghanistan. Her friend in Qatar was fortunately able to help her once she arrived.
“I remembered that my former flatmate in DC a couple of years ago was moved to Qatar,” Reneau told NBC. “He said he was working at the US embassy in Qatar. … She was sure her boss would approve of helping the girls. “
“He wrote an application and I got all the passports,” Reneau said. “He returned to the embassy at midnight and worked all night to prepare the documents [and] packages for girls “.
Reneau said it was chaotic to try to get the girls out, who “were in a sea of chaos with 8 million people and a city halfway around the world,” forcing her to work at the embassy all night.
“It’s a very narrow window of opportunity,” he told NBC. “I knew that if I didn’t go through that door now, it’s now or never. Sometimes you just have a chance. “
After canceling a flight, 10 girls boarded the next flight from the U.S. side of Kabul airport, which has been the scene of violence and turmoil as residents try to flee the Taliban regime.
The girls were taken to a safe place in the U.S. and will pursue higher education, Reneau said.
According to NBC, Reneau continues to work to get 25 more girls from the team to safety.
“All the excitement, two weeks of work for them, hit me at once,” he said.
Human rights groups had demanded earlier this week that Canada host the girls ’robotics team, as the Taliban go“ door to door and literally take the girls out and force them to become children’s boyfriends ”. The team competed in 2018.
“[The girls] they are worried about what brings us tomorrow. They want to continue to be polite. They want to remain the future of Afghanistan, but it is an extremely tenuous and dangerous situation for them, “human rights lawyer Kimberley Motley told Canadian Broadcasting Corp. on Sunday.
