As many as 77 schoolgirls were hospitalised after falling sick due to a suspected poisonous gas attack in Afghanistan’s northern Faryab province, officials said on Sunday.
The latest incident of the kind took place in the Jamshidi School in Maimana, the provincial capital, at 4pm on Saturday. The affected girls were rushed to the Afghan-Turk hospital, said public health director Dr Abdul Ali Haleem.
A doctor at the hospital, Syed Qudratullah Hashmi, said they received 64 girls within one hour of the incident and more girls were later brought to the hospital, taking the number of sick girls to 77.
The girls were discharged around 10pm, the emergency ward head said.
“When the girls started falling unconscious, our teacher saw a man fleeing to the school’s orchard,” an XIII grade student, Farahnaz, said. She asked the government to keep tight security for schools and punish those involved in poisoning schoolchildren.
Deputy Police Chief Brig Gen Totam Dara confirmed the incident, but refused to talk to reporters.
