22 School Girls Poisoned in Kabul

At least, 22 School girls and instructors were poisoned in Totya High School in Kart-e Naw in Kabul on Wednesday, officials say

"More than twenty school girls and instructors in Totya High School were poisoned," the spokesman for the Ministry of Education, Mohammad Asef Nang, told TOLOnews.

Head of the Indra Ghandi child health hospital, Dr Noorulhaq Yousufzai told a TOLOnews reporter that the school girls were poisoned as a result of poisonous gas sprayed in the school.

"This is as a result of unknown gas that was sprayed in the Totya High School at Sayed Noor Mohammad Shah area in Kabul. We have received seven poisoned students who are generally in good condition," he said. "Some of them are unconscious, suffocated and have nausea."

"We were in the classroom and suddenly smelt an unpleasant odour and we all became unconscious and then we were taken to the hospital," said a school girl in the hospital.

School poisoning is one of the cases that have strongly made Afghan people concerned in the recent months.

Previously, school girls in two schools were poisoned in Kabul and a number of other female students were poisoned in northern Kunduz province too, for which officials had blamed the Taliban.

Girls were not allowed to go to school under the Taliban regime, thus the Taliban frequently get blamed for such incidents.