80 Schoolgirls Poisoned in Afghanistan

Twenty-four Afghan girls got sick last Wednesday, 47 on Saturday, and 13 on Sunday following a suspected poison gas attack on a school in Kunduz, a region in Afghanistan under threat from the Taliban. The girls reported a strange smell in the classroom, and one girl said she remembered seeing her classmates and teachers passing out before she, too, lost consciousness and was taken to a nearby hospital. The girls are still suffering from dizziness, nausea and pain, but blood tests have been inconclusive.

Mahbobullah Sayedi, the spokesman for Kunduz province (which has become increasingly strategic for the Taliban as they attempt to block NATO supply routes) claimed the attack came from "enemies" of girls' education, and the Afghan government called any attack on girls' education a "terrorist act."

This is not an isolated incident. Another 20 girls fell ill in another school in the same province last week, and last year dozens of girls were sickened in Kapisa province, northeast of Kabul. And while some skeptics blame these illnesses on mass hysteria, this hypothesis seems extremely unlikely in face of the fact that: a) the Taliban frequently attempts to terrorize girls out of an education (in a hideous 2008 incident in Kandahar, girls and teachers were sprayed with acid by men on motorbikes); b) many girls reported strange smells and symptoms of poisoning; and c) parents tend to pull their daughters out of school following these incidents, giving the Taliban just what they want.

It seems to me that this is one more distressing, tragic example of how violence against women is systematically used as a weapon in war.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons