Afghan Girls School Hit By Poison Gas [Report]

An Afghan girls school may have been hit with poison gas in Takhar province’s capital, Taluqan. Local officials stated on Sunday that 74 girls at Bibi Maryam fell sick after smelling gas at the school.

The girls were being examined for possible poisoning. While some poisoning claims have been found to be false later, there are also numerous cases of mass poisonings of schoolgirls by some in Afghanistan’s conservative society.

Some in the Middle Eastern nation are opposed to female education. Sulaiman Moradi, the Takhar governor’s spokesman, blamed “enemies of the government and the country” for the suspected poison gas attack. Moradi added that the attack likely happened to warn girls against attending school.

Dr. Jamil Frotan, the head of the hospital where the young girls were taken, stated:

“We have already sent samples of their blood to the Ministry of Public Health and it will soon become clear what the reason for their illness was.”

Most of the girls were released after being treated at the local hospital. However, Frotan explained that some of them remained in critical condition on Sunday evening. The suspected poisoning came just three days after more than a dozen girls fell ill in another school in Taluqan.

So far, no group has claimed responsibility for either attack. It is not the first time a girls school in Takhar has had a poison gas attack. Between May and June of last year, four poisoning attacks happened on one school in the provincial capital. The attacks prompted local officials to have principals stay in school until late. Staff also searched the grounds regularly for suspicious objects.

Many women and girls have returned to school in the country since the 2001 ousting of the Taliban. The radical Islamist group banned girls from going to school. But despite the government change, several girls schools are still attacked.

[Image via Lizette Potgieter / Shutterstock.com]