With the beginning of a new school year in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has said that those who close children’s schools are enemies of Islam and Afghanistan, according to a Pashtu-language Afghan daily.
Afghan officials say that currently there are 442 schools closed all over Afghanistan because of insecurity, according to a report in the Pashtu-language newspaper Wrazpanra Weesa.
The Taliban militants routinely launch attacks on schools.
Afghan Minister for Education Farooq Wardak said that currently seven million Afghan children go to school. When the Taliban regime was removed by the U.S. in 2001 less than 1 million children in Afghanistan attended school.
Source: Wrazpanra Weesa, Afghanistan, March 7, 2010
