MEXICO CITY: Mexico welcomed a group of 124 Afghan media workers and their families Wednesday after the group fled their country because of the Taliban takeover.
The group arrived aboard a Qatar Emiri Air Force flight to Mexico City in the pre-dawn hours. The Foreign Relations Department said the Afghans had worked for “various media outlets” and had requested humanitarian visas because of the Taliban’s hostility toward journalists.
The New York Times reported that a group of its journalists had been taken in by Mexico and arrived Wednesday.
Mexico accepted its first group of refugees from Afghanistan on Tuesday, when five women and one man arrived in Mexico City.
The young women, who had to travel through six countries to reach Mexico, have competed in robotics competitions. They fled Afghanistan after the Taliban took control of the country earlier this month. The Taliban have been hostile to women working or going to school after a certain age.
Mexico’s interior secretary, Olga Sánchez Cordero, said Wednesday that Mexico would grant asylum “to those Afghan citizens who require it.”
The offer of safe haven to Afghan journalists is a sharp contrast in a country that is unable to protect its own reporters.
Press groups say nine journalists were killed in Mexico in 2020, making it the most dangerous country for reporters outside war zones. Six have been killed so far in 2021.
Mexico welcomes 124 Afghan refugee journalists and their families
https://arab.news/r37ax
Mexico welcomes 124 Afghan refugee journalists and their families
- Mexico welcomed a group of 124 Afghan media workers and their families after the group fled their country
Bondi Beach attack hero says wanted to protect ‘innocent people’
DUBAI: Bondi Beach shooting hero Ahmed Al Ahmed recalled the moment he ran toward one of the attackers and wrenched his shotgun away, saying the only thing he had in mind was to stop the assailant from “killing more innocent people.”
Al-Ahmad’s heroism was widely acclaimed in Australia when he tackled and disarmed gunman Sajid Akram who fired at Jewish people attending a Hanukkah event on December 14, killing 15 people and wounding dozens.
“My target was just to take the gun from him, and to stop him from killing a human being’s life and not killing innocent people,” he told CBS News in an interview on Monday.
“I know I saved lots, but I feel sorry for the lost.”
In footage viewed by millions of people, Al Ahmed was seen ducking between parked cars as the shooting unfolded, then wresting a gun from one of the assailants.
He was shot several times in the shoulder as a result and underwent several rounds of surgery.
“I jumped in his back, hit him and … hold him with my right hand and start to say a word like, you know, to warn him, ‘Drop your gun, stop doing what you’re doing’,” Al Ahmed said.
“I don’t want to see people killed in front of me, I don’t want to see blood, I don’t want to hear his gun, I don’t want to see people screaming and begging, asking for help,” Al Ahmed told the television network.
“That’s my soul asked me to do that, and everything in my heart, and my brain, everything just worked, you know, to manage and to save the people’s life,” he said.
EXCLUSIVE: Ahmed al Ahmed, the man hailed as a hero for tackling one of the gunmen behind an antisemitic attack on Australia's Bondi Beach earlier this month, is speaking out in the aftermath of the massacre.
— CBS News (@CBSNews) December 28, 2025
"I know I saved lots, but I feel sorry still for the lost." pic.twitter.com/gFUfJvv7c6
Al Ahmed was at the beach getting a cup of coffee when the shooting occurred.
He is a father of two who emigrated to Australia from Syria in 2007, and works as a fruit seller.
Local media reported that the Australian government has fast-tracked and granted a number of visas for Al Ahmed’s family following his act of bravery.
“Ahmed has shown the courage and values we want in Australia,” Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said in a statement.
One of the gunmen, Sajid Akram, 50, was shot and killed by police during the attack. An Indian national, he entered Australia on a visa in 1998.
His 24-year-old son Naveed, an Australian-born citizen, remains in custody on charges including terrorism and 15 murders, as well as committing a “terrorist act” and planting a bomb with intent to harm.
(with AFP)
