Afghan girls fall ill in suspected gas attack

Scores of Afghan schoolgirls were knocked unconscious or made ill over the weekend by suspected poison gas attacks on their schools and authorities are blaming insurgents who oppose educating girls.

Provincial police chief Abdul Razzaq Yaqubi said about 48 girls and several teachers had become ill suddenly and many collapsed after smelling poison gas at a school in the northern city of Kunduz on Saturday.

Humayum Khamosh, a doctor at a Kunduz hospital, said another 13 girls fell ill after an attack at another school yesterday.

"I was in class when a smell like a flower reached my nose," said Sumaila, 12, one of the girls hospitalised after the attack. "I saw my classmates and my teacher collapse and when I opened my eyes I was in hospital."

President Hamid Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omer said insurgents intent on spreading fear were to blame for the incidents.

"Whoever prevents children from going to school is an enemy of Afghanistan and its prosperity," he said. A Taliban spokesman denied the group was responsible, but said other anti-government groups could be to blame. "We strongly condemn such an act that targeted innocent school girls by poisonous gas," said Zabihullah Mujahid said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

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