Dozens of girls are hospitalized in Afghanistan with symptoms of having been poisoned in their own classroom, in two different locations. The first of the two presumed poisoning attempts occurred on Saturday morning and affected 56 girls, three teachers, a teacher, two janitors and a father. The next day, in a neighboring town, the scenes of respiratory problems were repeated, this time among 26 students and four teachers.
Many of the schoolgirls have had to be taken to the Sar-e-Pul Provincial Hospital to be supplied with oxygen at intervals. Many of them had nausea and other symptoms associated with poisoning, although they are recovering. Apparently, the classrooms were sprayed before the start of classes with some poison, more toxic than commercial insecticides.
According to a provincial official, the incident could be related to “quarrels between towns.” If so, the episode on Sunday would be revenge for the poisoning on Saturday, in which the symptoms of poisoning appeared as soon as classes began, at eight in the morning, after the Friday holiday.
However, both episodes bring to mind the 13,000 poisonings of girls registered since November in neighboring Iran, in what the Islamic Republic considers an orchestrated campaign.
“Unknown persons entered the classrooms and poisoned them,” said an official in the Sancharak district. “When the girls entered the class, they were intoxicated.”
The Taliban have not interrupted girls’ primary education after their assault on power two Augusts ago. Public secondary education, however, was suspended from the beginning under formal pretexts. The same thing happens, for some months, with university education.
Yesterday, precisely Sunday, the UN celebrated the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression. This Monday, UNICEF has asked for protection for the Afghans after the alleged poisoning and has called on the Taliban to investigate the incident.
The Taliban, who come from the Pashtun majority of the Afghan population, from their rear in Pakistan managed to prevail in 2021 in the civil war that they had been waging for almost thirty years with the primitive Northern Alliance, dominated by Tajiks, Hazaras and uzbek.
The leaders of these guerrillas, who in 2001 had been cornered to 10% of Afghan territory, saw how the US invasion and international sponsorship offered them the opportunity to manage amounts of money and shares of power never dreamed of, throughout the territory, without actually having to give up the illegal trades in which they had always excelled.
Quite a change compared to 2001, when Mullah Omar eradicated opium poppy cultivation – the base of opium and heroin – from 90% of Afghanistan (not so the Tajiks and others, who continued to cultivate it in their 10%).
Today, no country recognizes the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. However, some countries, such as Russia, China or Pakistan, did not close their embassy in Kabul in 2021. Others have since reopened it. And quite a few more, such as Turkey or Iran, have accepted, for realism or convenience, the replacement of the former diplomats of the pro-Western regime by Taliban diplomats, in their legations.
Some are in a hurry to go further. It has just emerged that last month the Prime Minister of Qatar traveled to Kandahar. Although it has not been confirmed or denied whether he met with Mullah Ajundzada, the supreme guide of the Taliban, who lives in seclusion in the Pashtun capital.
Chinese companies, whose executives are increasingly visible in Kabul, are not missing out either. Beijing has offered investments worth billions of euros to exploit Afghan lithium, which sleeps not too far from the Chinese border. Last weekend, Chinese businessmen met with the Taliban Minister of Energy to discuss the possible installation of thermal and solar power plants in Afghanistan.
