125 girls, 3 teachers poisoned at Afghan school
Posted on: 11:03 am, May 23, 2012, by Cary Docter, updated on: 08:53pm, May 23, 2012
The incident occurred in the provincial capital of Talokhan,
in the Bibi Hajera girls school, said Dr. Hafizullah Safi,
the province’s director of public health.
***
Forty of the girls were still hospitalized, he said, with symptoms including
dizziness, vomiting, headaches and loss of consciousness.
***
Blood samples have been sent to Kabul in an effort to determine the substance used, he said.
“A number of girls from 15 to 18 were brought from a school to hospital today,”
said Dr. Habibullah Rostaqi, hospital director.
“Generally they are not in a critical condition.
We are looking after them, but let’s see what happens later.
We understand so far from the situation, they are more traumatized.”
“The Afghan people know that the terrorists and the Taliban
are doing these things to threaten girls and stop them from going to school,”
said Khalilullah Aseer, spokesman for Takhar police.
“That’s something we and the people believe.
Now we are implementing democracy in Afghanistan and we want girls to be educated,
but the government’s enemies don’t want this.”
***
There have been several instances of girls being poisoned in schools in recent years.
***
In April, also in Takhar province, more than 170 women and girls were hospitalized
with suspected poisoning after drinking apparently poisoned well water at a school.
Local health officials blamed the acts on extremists opposed to women’s education.
While nearly all the incidents involve girls,
earlier this month nearly 400 boys at a school in Khost province fell ill
after drinking water from a well that a health official said may have been poisoned.
I will punish the student,” Education Minister Ghulam Farooq Wardak told
a press conference on Tuesday.
***
***
ReBlogged from PRESS INSIDE :http://saccsivdotcom.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/80-school-girls-poisoned-in-faryab-province-of-afghanistan/
80 school girls poisoned in Faryab province of Afghanistan
By SAYED JAWAD – 21 May 2013, 9:36 pm
According to local authorities in northern Faryab province of Afghanistan,
at least 80 school girls were poisoned in Sherin Tagab district on Tuesday.
District chief for Sherin Tagab, Syed Luqman confirming the report said
the school girls belonged to Islam Qala girls school.
Mr. Luqman further added the incident took place after an unknown individual
attacked the compound of the school with toxicant gas,
leaving at least three girls unconscious.
***
He said the number of school girls later increased
to 80 after inhaling the poisonous gas.
This comes as several girls were poisoned in north-eastern Takhar province of Afghanistan last month.
However, education ministry officials denied militants involvement
behind the poisoning of school girls and
called it a psychological issue.
***
Education officials also warned to try
those school girls who ‘claims’ of being poisoned in the future.
Follow Khaama Press (KP) | Afghan Online Newspaper on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook. Stay updated via RSS
***
Yahoo! News Singapore
AFP News – Wed, May 8, 2013
Afghan minister vows punishment for fainting girls
I will punish the student,” Education Minister Ghulam Farooq Wardak told
a press conference on Tuesday.
“From now on, if I find anyone saying ‘I’m poisoned’
and the poisoning is not proved by the hospital,
***
“I will punish the teacher, I will punish the head teacher and
I will punish the school director,” he added.
***
Afghanistan’s education minister
has threatened to punish schoolgirls who
claim to suffer from alleged “poisonings” that many officials
believe are actually temporary psychological illnesses.
***
Scores of girls’ schools over recent years have seen mysterious mass faintings,
nausea and similar symptoms that are often blamed by police and the local media
on poisoning by Taliban insurgents or toxic gas leaks.
But no laboratory evidence of poison or other toxins has ever been found at schools
and no deaths have occurred,
with the girls often released from hospital after only a few hours.
***
In the latest case, 200 girls were reported to have been “poisoned”
at a school in Kabul on May 1,
causing an outbreak of screaming, stomach aches and vomiting.
***
The education department said the government was determined to
crack down on the causes of outbreaks of
‘psychological illnesses among young girls’.
“When one student faints,
it spreads around and everyone might think it’s poisoning,”
Mohammad Kabir Haqmal, spokesman for the ministry, told AFP.
***
“If tests prove it is mass hysteria or any other natural cause,
of course no one will be punished”.
***
What the minister said was that we will pursue those who disrupt the classes.”
***
Wazhma Frouqh, a female education activist,
criticised the minister’s stance and said
that previous cases of “poisonings” had dissuaded families
from sending their daughters to school.
“The minister should not have said that he will punish schoolgirls,”
she told AFP.
“His job is to find out what has happened and protect schools.”
***
Girls were banned from going to school under the Taliban,
but numbers have risen since the extremist regime was ousted in 2001
and the government says 40 percent of pupils are now female.
***
AFP News – Wed, Apr 18, 2012
‘Poison’ scare at Afghan girls’ school
More than 100 Afghan schoolgirls were taken to hospital Tuesday after
drinking water believed to have been poisoned by opponents
of education for girls, an official said.
“I think some radical elements who oppose girls going to school are behind this act,”
said district governor Mohammad Hussain, adding that police were looking into the incident.
***
The schoolgirls fell ill after drinking water from a tank at their high school
in the small town of Rustaq
in the northeastern province of Takhar, Hussain said.
Education ministry spokesman Abdul Saboor,
however, cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the cause of the incident.
“According to our reports a number of these schoolgirls
were panicked and taken to hospital
and they were then quickly dismissed.
“But some others are still there.
We think it is a small incident,
but we are continuing our investigations.”
***
Afghan girls were banned from going to school or working in offices by the hardline Islamist Taliban
regime until it was overthrown by a US-led invasion in late 2001 for sheltering Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
The Taliban have since waged an insurgency against the Western-backed government of
President Hamid Karzai and some 130,000 NATO troops in the country.
Millions of girls now go to school,
but they and their teachers are occasionally attacked.
***
Provincial health director Hafizullah Safi said 140 schoolgirls had
been admitted to local health facilities
but most were released after recovering from symptoms which included headache and nausea.
“Most of the schoolgirls who were brought to the hospital after falling ill have been dismissed,
the other girls in the hospital are in stable condition,” he said.
In similar cases last year hundreds of girl students were taken to hospitals across the country
after falling ill from suspected gas attacks or water poisoning.
Authorities at the time mostly blamed the Taliban,
though some suggested that the cause might have been mass hysteria,
‘a phenomenon recorded around the world, often among young girls’.
***
Also printed in the New Zealand Herald : http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10799685
***
ReBlogged from Morning Cup O’ Joe: http://morningcupojoe.com/2010/06/29/afghanistan-school-for-girls/
In Afghanistan from 2006 to 2008, there were 461 attacks on schools for girls,
and in 2008,
15 girls were attacked with battery acid on their way to school.
***
Afghan Schoolchildren in Kabul (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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Afghanistan34P-Takhar (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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