20 girls hospitalized in Afghanistan after falling ill in class; officials suspect fumigation

Afghan girls fall ill in class; 20 hospitalized

KABUL, Afghanistan — About 20 Afghan girls were hospitalized after falling ill in their school, and authorities said Wednesday they suspect their classroom’s recent fumigation was to blame but were investigating whether it was a poison attack.

Several group poisonings in girls’ schools in the country’s northeast this year have raised fears that the Taliban and other Islamic fundamentalists who oppose female education are using a new method to scare them into staying away from classes.

Qameruddin Shakib, the deputy governor of northern Sar-e-Pul province, said students in one class in the Gawharshad Begom high school fell ill Tuesday in a room that had recently been sprayed with insecticide.

“We doubt any militant involvement, but we need to investigate it deeply and make ourselves sure about it,” Shakib told The Associated Press.

The girls became sick after spending about 20 minutes in the classroom, with some vomiting and others feeling unstable and unable to stand up, he said. About 20 students were taken to a hospital for treatment, and all were released after several hours.

Girls schools have regularly come under attack or have been burned down by militants, and some students have had acid thrown on them in what officials say are intimidation tactics.

More than 100 people were hospitalized after the earlier poisoning cases in Kabul and two regions just north of the capital. No one has claimed responsibility for any of the attacks.

While there are pockets of insurgent activity all over the country, northern Afghanistan is generally considered safer than the southern provinces that are the Taliban’s heartland and where U.S. commanders are focusing their efforts in the nearly 9-year-old war.

A spike in violence has killed 24 NATO troops already this month, as the insurgents step up attacks ahead of a planned major operation in Kandahar province that is the Taliban’s base.

As fighting escalates, the Afghan government is reaching out to the insurgents in hopes of ending the war.

Last week, President Hamid Karzai won endorsement from a national conference for his plan to offer incentives to the militants to lay down their arms, and to seek talks with the Taliban leadership. The leadership has so far publicly shunned the offer, and the U.S. is skeptical whether peace can succeed until the Taliban are weakened on the battlefield.

Meanwhile, in Mazar-e-Sharif, the main city in the north, more than 1,000 people held an angry protest Tuesday against alleged Christian proselytizing in Afghanistan.

Afghan authorities on May 31 suspended the operations of Church World Service, based in Elkhart, Indiana, and Norwegian Church Aid pending an investigation of allegations of proselytizing carried by an Afghan television report. Both charities deny spreading Christianity.