WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department lashed out Thursday at House Republicans over a subpoena for testimony about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, accusing them of repeatedly calling for hearings on days they knew Secretary of State Antony Blinken was unavailable to appear.
Rep. Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he was trying to accommodate Blinken, who faces the threat of being held in contempt of Congress if he doesn’t appear.
The Texas Republican had first set a hearing for Thursday, while Blinken was in Egypt and France. He then changed the date to Tuesday, when Blinken will be at the annual U.N. General Assembly gathering of world leaders in New York and attending President Joe Biden’s speech at the time of the hearing.
“They have unilaterally selected a date when we have told them in advance that he will be not in Washington, D.C., because he will be elsewhere carrying out important meetings to advance the foreign policy interests of the United States,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
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He said the State Department told the committee weeks in advance about Blinken’s schedule, so “it very much does not appear that they’re acting in good faith.”
McCaul said the department was being “disingenuous” because it had declined repeated requests to pick a date in September for Blinken to testify. “If we are forced to hold Secretary Blinken in contempt of Congress, he has no one to blame but himself,” the Republican committee chairman said Thursday in a statement.
The subpoena for Blinken’s testimony is the latest in a series of moves by McCaul and other House Republicans over the past 18 months to hold the Biden administration accountable for what they have called a “stunning failure of leadership” after Taliban forces seized the Afghan capital far more rapidly than U.S. intelligence had foreseen as American forces pulled out.
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Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly brought up the disastrous exit from Afghanistan in the campaign, trying to link it to Democratic rival Kamala Harris. Several watchdog reviews and a more than 18-month investigation by House Republicans have failed to pinpoint an instance where the vice president had a particular impact on decision-making on the withdrawal.
Blinken has testified about Afghanistan 14 times, including four times before McCaul’s committee.
Miller said Blinken was willing to testify again if a mutually convenient time could be arranged but noted that Congress will be in recess from the end of next week until after the November election.
Earlier this month, House Republicans issued a scathing report on their investigation into the withdrawal, blaming the disastrous end of America’s longest war on the Biden administration and minimizing Trump’s role.
The partisan review laid out the final months of military and civilian failures, following Trump’s February 2020 withdrawal deal, which allowed the Taliban to conquer the country even before the last U.S. officials flew out on Aug. 30, 2021. The chaotic exit left behind many American citizens, Afghan battlefield allies, female activists and others at risk from the Taliban.
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The report broke little new ground as the withdrawal has been exhaustively litigated through several independent reviews. Previous investigations and analyses have pointed to a systemic failure spanning the last four presidential administrations and concluded that Biden and Trump share the heaviest blame.
McCaul, who led the investigation, said the GOP review revealed that the Biden administration “had the information and opportunity to take necessary steps to plan for the inevitable collapse of the Afghan government, so we could safely evacuate U.S. personnel, American citizens, green card holders, and our brave Afghan allies.”
Farnoush is a congressional reporter.
State Department accuses House GOP of calling Blinken to testify about Afghanistan when he’s away
The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee has once again summoned Secretary of State Antony Blinken to explain the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan next week.
The committee issued a statement requesting Blinken to explain by September 24 about the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Previously, Michael McCaul, Chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, had summoned Blinken for a testimony on Afghanistan on Thursday, September 19.
Yesterday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller announced that Blinken could not testify on Afghanistan due to other pressing matters.
Miller emphasized that Blinken is occupied with important tasks, such as working on a ceasefire in Gaza.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress warned that if Blinken refuses to appear before Congress, he could be accused of contempt for violating the subpoena.
According to the State Department spokesperson, Blinken has testified more than 14 times about Afghanistan and has appeared four times before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Investigations into the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan were initiated two years ago by McCaul, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The issue of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan remains contentious, with Congress seeking further clarification from Blinken. The situation reflects the ongoing challenges and scrutiny surrounding the 2021 withdrawal.
US Congress summons Blinken over Afghanistan withdrawal
Haqqani also mentioned that the conditions are now in place for the international community to participate in the reconstruction and progress of Afghanistan.
Khalifa Sirajuddin Haqqani, the acting Minister of Interior, said during a meeting in Said Karam district of Paktia that the international community has now accepted that Afghanistan does not pose a threat to other countries.
The acting Minister of Interior also mentioned that the conditions are now in place for the international community to participate in the reconstruction and progress of Afghanistan through legitimate engagement.
The acting Minister of Interior said: “We will provide them with the means through legitimate channels so that they can engage with us in the rebuilding and development of Afghanistan.”
Khalifa Sirajuddin Haqqani added in this meeting that the world is ready to invest in Afghanistan’s mining sector. He highlighted that work on major national projects in the country, such as Qosh Tepa and TAPI, is ongoing.
The acting Minister of Interior further said: “They say that Afghanistan is a rich country in terms of what lies underground, but a poor country above ground. If we extract the treasures by God’s power, the world will be in need of them.”
Meanwhile, residents of Paktia have called for more facilities in the health and education sectors and have also requested the interim government to implement fundamental projects in various areas of the province.
“The youth here have higher education and want to work alongside officials to alleviate the sufferings of this nation,” said Shafiq Totakhail, one of the tribal elders in Paktia.
The acting Minister of Interior also pledged that several other projects, including the Machalgho Dam, the Gardez-Patan road, and electricity transmission to several districts of Paktia province, have been approved, and practical work on them will begin in the near future.
Haqqani: World Should Participate in Development of Afghanistan
Muttaqi said during the program that the Islamic Emirate has been officially invited to the Moscow Format Consultations.
Amir Khan Muttaqi, the acting Foreign Minister, announced today (Thursday) during a program outlining the ministry’s annual achievements that the Moscow Format Consultations on Afghanistan will be held within the next two weeks.
Muttaqi said during the program that the Islamic Emirate has been officially invited to the Moscow Format Consultations and that a high-level delegation from the Islamic Emirate will participate.
The acting Foreign Minister said: “It is expected that the Moscow Format Consultations will be held within the next two weeks. The official invitation has been received, and a high-level delegation of the Islamic Emirate will attend the meeting.”
Additionally, Dmitry Zhirnov, the Russian ambassador in Kabul, during a meeting with the acting Foreign Minister yesterday, urged the participation of the Islamic Emirate’s delegation in all regional and international meetings hosted by Russia. Dmitry Zhirnov described the relationship between the Islamic Emirate and Russia as important for Moscow.
Some political analysts also called Moscow’s role in Afghan affairs significant and believe that Russia can play an effective role in reintegrating Afghanistan into the international community.
“The Moscow Format is interested in lifting all sanctions imposed by the US against Afghanistan and ensuring that the entire world, especially the Western world, pays the price for its mistakes,” said Fazl Rahman Orya, a political analyst.
“If the Islamic Emirate continues to be invited to such meetings, it will benefit both the Islamic Emirate and the people of Afghanistan,” said Saleem Paigir, another political analyst.
This comes as Mawlawi Abdul Kabir, the Political Deputy of the Prime Minister, during a meeting with Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s special representative for Afghanistan, had requested Afghanistan’s official membership in the Moscow Format.
Muttaqi: High-Level Delegation Will Attend Moscow Format Consultations
Sangin (Afghanistan) (AFP) – Asadullah was a prosperous poppy farmer in southern Afghanistan for 20 years until Taliban authorities abruptly began enforcing a long-standing ban on the crop.
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From four acres (1.6 hectares) in Helmand — long the heartland of poppy production — the 65-year-old earned between 250,000 to 500,000 Afghani ($3,500 to $7,000) per season from the plant, which is used to produce opium and heroin.
Forced by the authorities to switch to other crops, he is now struggling to make ends meet.
“We are finished. We don’t have anything to eat for dinner,” laments Asadullah, his weathered face and long white beard showing his hardship.
“Now we barely make 25,000 Afghani.”
Like his neighbours in the village of Torma — sweltering in heat and criss-crossed by streams where boys play — Asadullah first tried planting corn, which failed.
“We didn’t have money for fertiliser,” he said, adding most people turned to the hardier mung bean, which is easier to grow but yields a fraction of the profit of poppy.
Growers hit hard
The decree from Taliban Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada in April 2022 banning poppy production in the world’s top producing country caused a 95 percent drop in harvests last year.
But it also hit the growers hard, and according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the eradication of poppy inflicted losses of over a billion dollars on Afghan farmers last year.
Lala Khan, 40, switched to growing cotton when it became clear the authorities were determined to enforce the ban — but his annual income plummeted.
“We used to eat meat once every three days, now it’s once a month,” he says.
Khan says he received only “a sack of flour and a sack of fertiliser” as compensation for stopping poppy production.
“What can we do with that?” he asks.
Ehsanullah, another former poppy grower, can barely conceal his anger at his current plight.
“We buy all our daily needs on credit. And when we harvest, we repay the debts and have nothing left.”
Secret stash
In the neighbouring village of Khumarai, the local imam known as Bismillah explains that 80 percent of the land in the area was previously used to grow poppy, and 20 percent for wheat, corn, beans and cotton.
In Afghanistan, where huge families are the norm, one of the biggest expenses for households is a dowry to marry off daughters.
“We could pay it with opium, but not with corn and beans,” he says.
Some people, like Bismillah, still have a stash of poppy resin left over from their last crop — an Afghan equivalent of cash stuffed under the mattress.
“Most people keep some at home, but they avoid saying it for fear of thieves,” Bismillah says, showing AFP a basin containing around half a kilogram (one pound) of the sticky brown resin.
“We are waiting for the price to go higher… we are hoping to pay (the dowries) with it”.
In Maiwand, in the neighbouring province of Kandahar, the former opium market is now deserted and Hunar, 40, has turned to selling sugar, oil, tea and sweets instead.
“For us, obeying the order of the Emir (the supreme leader) is obligatory,” he said.
But he warned people were struggling so badly, there was a risk they would return to growing poppy.
Not all provinces have been as compliant as Helmand in stopping poppy production.
In May, clashes between farmers and brigades sent to destroy their poppy fields resulted in several deaths in northeast Badakhshan.
“Death to the Emirate (Taliban-ruled Afghanistan),” some shouted in video of the clashes seen on social media.
Uncertain future
According to the International Crisis Group (ICG), the strict enforcement of the ban has created enormous hardship for a huge swath of rural Afghanistan.
“Implemented with growing seriousness, the Taliban’s anti-narcotics campaign has profoundly affected a country that ranks among the world’s largest suppliers of illegal drugs,” a report released this month said.
But it warned the ban’s future was uncertain.
“Although the Taliban are adamant about implementing it, it could collapse under the weight of economic hardship,” it said.
The ICG says while huge investment was needed to help farmers produce profitable crops such as pomegranates, figs, almonds, or pistachios, that was still a short-term fix.
“Licit crops will not offer sufficient employment, so the focus should be on job creation in non-farm industries,” the report said.
Meanwhile in Maiwand, another former opium seller said while the open market had been shut down, deals were still being made.
“Everyone has opium,” he says.
“People generally have 10 to 15 kilos of opium from previous harvests, which they only sell to their contacts. It’s sold in small quantities, under the counter.”
Afghan religious police wield new power to enforce a ban on women raising their voices in public and looking at men other than their husbands or relatives.
As the Taliban begins enforcing new draconian laws, Afghan women say that whatever hopes they once harbored for an easing of the severe restrictions on them have largely vanished.
The new religious code issued late last month bans women from raising their voices, reciting the Quran in public and looking at men other than their husbands or relatives. It requires women to cover the lower half of their faces in addition to donning a head covering they were already expected to wear, among other rules.
Women’s lives were heavily regulated by the Taliban-run government before the latest rules were promulgated, and some of the new laws codify restrictions that were already imposed on women in practice. But Afghan women, speaking in phone interviews over the past week, pointed to mounting signs of a crackdown in urban areas, where rules had been less rigorously enforced.
The Taliban’s morality police, which is an extension of the regime’s most conservative elements, appears to have been handed an unprecedented amount of power in the capital, Kabul, and elsewhere, women said. While the morality police’s white robes were a rare sight in Kabul, they have become omnipresent since late August, several women said.
Officers are roaming bus stops and shopping centers searching for dress-code violations or any women who might laugh or raise their voices. On Fridays, the Muslim holy day, religious police officers disperse women in some parts of Kabul and accuse them of preventing male shop owners from making it to the mosque in time for prayers. Women are an increasingly rare sight on Afghan television broadcasts.
While girls were banned from going to school above sixth grade and women barred from universities soon after the Taliban took power three years ago, some still attended English classes as recently as a few weeks ago. But after the Taliban’s morality police issued warnings to male teachers, according to students, many families now refuse to let their daughters participate. Other women have decided to stay home out of fear.
“Three weeks ago, I was still hopeful that the Taliban may change and remove the restrictions on girls’ education,” said Meena, a Kabul resident in her 20s who runs secret classes for teenage girls. “But once they published their vice and virtue law, I lost all hope,” she said. The women interviewed for this story spoke on the condition that they remain anonymous or that only their first names be published due to fear of drawing unwanted scrutiny from the Taliban regime.
Another women’s rights activist who also lives in Kabul said she had been banned from studying when the Taliban held power in the 1990s. Now, she sees history repeating itself. “The entire country has turned into a graveyard for women’s dreams,” said the 48-year-old woman. She added that initial signs that Taliban rule would be less extreme the second time around have not borne out.
When the Taliban seized power in August 2021, the new government quickly imposed far-ranging restrictions on women. But afterward, many of these changes — particularly the bans on education — were portrayed by Taliban officials as temporary. Those officials were often unable to specify what these rules required, leaving some room for interpretation that translated into regional variation in how the rules were followed. There remained a large difference, for example, between urban Kabul and the conservative rural south of the country.
But now, some women said, hopes are waning that urban influences could moderate the Taliban.
“There are two groups within the Taliban,” said Sajia, 24, a female former university student. “One group seemed to be moderate and eager to bend the rules. But now, with the restrictions approved as law, it seems that they have failed and there is no hope left.”
Others gave up hoping long ago that the Taliban leadership could be made more tolerant. “When it comes to cruelty and restrictions, they are all on the same page,” said a 20-year-old female Kabul resident, who was admitted by Kabul University’s archaeology department just when the Taliban banned women from studying.
The Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which oversees the morality police, could not be reached for comment. Two former senior officials with the ministry said the position of spokesman is vacant.
In a video statement to RTA, a Taliban-run broadcaster, Justice Ministry spokesman Barakatullah Rasouli said the new regulations emphasize “respect for human dignity of individuals” and advise officials to preach “gently.” The Taliban maintains that women’s lives have improved under its three-year rule and frequently argues that restrictions on women are for their protection.
Afghan women’s rights activists counter that the Quran does not ban women from getting educated and imposes far fewer rules about proper dress than the ones mandated by the Taliban.
Many of the Taliban’s beliefs are partly rooted in centuries-old Pashtun culture, which remains entrenched in many rural areas of Afghanistan. In these areas, it is not only men who share the Taliban’s views. In Kabul, some women particularly fear female members of the morality police, who are often recruited from conservative suburbs. “They behave even more aggressively than the male officers do,” said a 20-year-old female Kabul resident.
Many women in Kabul say they doubt the Taliban’s religious justifications for the rules, and there is widespread speculation that the regime is adding restrictions on women’s rights so it can later bargain them away in negotiations with international agencies and foreign capitals. The Taliban has been seeking international recognition for its government — so far, no country has done so — and trying to gain access to Afghan Central Bank reserves that remain frozen. Afghan leaders hope such a breakthrough would give a boost to the economy, helping to ease unemployment and hunger.
Some Afghan women blame the outside world for their vanishing freedoms. “The silence of the world over the last three years will go down as a dark chapter in history,” said Meena, echoing a widespread sentiment in the country that global attention has moved on from Afghanistan.
Many of the women she speaks to say they have unsuccessfully applied for scholarships abroad, she said, and are running out of options.
“The Taliban will keep using religion as a weapon against women,” she said. “To them, seeing the hair of a girl is a sin, but starving your country is not.”
Lutfullah Qasimyar and Haq Nawaz Khan contributed to this report.
Taliban begins enforcing new draconian laws, and Afghan women despair
Regime suspends polio campaign across Afghanistan over security concerns and women’s role in vaccination drive
Afghanistan is at risk of a polio outbreak, health officials have warned, after the Taliban suspended the vaccination campaign over security fears and restrictions on women.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed 18 new cases of polio infection in the country so far this year, a significant increase from the six cases reported in 2023. Local healthcare workers say these numbers could be higher as many cases will not yet have been detected.
The Taliban had “temporarily suspended” polio vaccinations in Afghanistan, a health official involved with the campaign confirmed to the Guardian, because of security concerns and women’s involvement in administering vaccines.
A highly infectious viral disease, polio can cause paralysis and death, particularly in infants and young children.
“The reason behind the postponing of the polio campaign is the issues with the modality of implementation,” the health official explained on condition of anonymity. “The leadership of the current government has ordered us to not conduct door-to door campaigns.”
Instead, the Taliban government wants to shift vaccination efforts to local mosques, with the expectation that families would bring their children to get doses.
“This is very bad news for the polio programme,” the official said. “For the eradication to be successful, we need to cover more than 95% of the children with two doses of the vaccine.
“But without the door-to-door campaigns, we will not be able to reach [that target]. It puts the whole country at risk, even the region.”
“One of the reasons for banning door-to-door campaigns was security. The south, especially Kandahar, is where the Taliban leaders live, and they are concerned the campaigns could reveal their locations to foreign threats,” the official said.
Fake vaccination campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan were reportedly used by US intelligence agencies to identify and confirm terrorist hideouts, including those of Osama bin Laden. This led to massive mistrust of the campaigns across the region, with several attacks on polio workers over the past decade.
A local healthcare worker in Kandahar said that door-to-door vaccination was already banned in southern Afghanistan.
“In Kandahar and even in parts of Uruzgan province, vaccinations have been taking place only in the local mosques for many years now,” one of them said.
While the Taliban have banned women from working in various sectors, women in healthcare have largely been allowed to remain in their jobs.
However, the healthcare worker said: “Women in the southern region face restrictions from local authorities in participating in the programme, particularly in the rural areas.”
The health official agreed. “Women have been crucial to the success of the door-to-door campaigns and raising awareness of the vaccines among mothers and families since, in a deeply conservative society, men would not be allowed into those spaces,” they said.
Of the 18 cases reported this year, 11 are in Kandahar. “In the rest of Afghanistan, there are no issues with female polio workers, and in those areas where we have female workers, we don’t have cases of polio. They are directly responsible for the eradication of polio in those parts,” the official added.
“When the Taliban took over, I was happy because I thought now we would have the opportunity to completely remove polio from Kandahar,” said one 23-year-old former female polio worker, who asked to be identified only as Farhanaz.
“I was eager to travel to remote regions if needed to administer the vaccines. But when I faced restrictions, I was heartbroken,” she said.
Farhanaz said she had been working with the local vaccination campaign since she was a teenager but was forced to resign shortly after the Taliban takeover in 2021.
“Our work was crucial and effective. Preventing us [women] from doing our job will hurt the country and our children will suffer for no fault of theirs,” she warned.
The WHO has been approached for comment.
Taliban’s curbs on women add to risk of polio outbreak, health officials warn
The ban on girls’ secondary education, together with other policies by the Islamic Emirate, have severely affected the lives of female teachers across Afghanistan. This is seldom truer than it is in Shughnan, a mountainous district in Badakhshan province where men and women have long specialised in teaching, working in their own district and beyond. AAN’s Fabrizio Foschini has sought to understand what’s happening in this fragment of Afghanistan, one of the lesser known of the country’s many faces.The bridge connecting Afghanistan and Tajikistan in Shughnan district, seen from the Afghan side. Photo by Fabrizio Foschini, 2009
The number of female teachers in Afghanistan has plummeted since the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). In 2018, women accounted for nearly 81,000 – 36 per cent – of the 226,000 teachers in the country’s state schools, according to a survey by Education International. By August 2022, one year after the IEA came to power, 11,500 women teachers had been pushed out of a job (see SIGAR here and this AAN backgrounder on the evolution of Taleban thinking on education). According to the 2023/2024 statistical yearbook, the women teachers employed are currently slightly over 71,000.[1] While the abrupt end to girls’ education beyond the sixth grade has been the most significant overall contributor to the decline in the number of female teachers (see this AAN report), over time, other IEA restrictions, such as preventing women teaching boys, have added to the decline (see this Human Rights Watch report). The IEA’s decisions regarding universities, such as the ban on women attendance (see BBC report) and the announcement of new rules that prevent women professors from teaching male students, caused a further loss of jobs for women educators.Although most of the teachers affected by the IEA decisions have not been fired and receive at least a part of their former salaries while sitting at home, the impact of the restrictions on their lives has been devastating. In some places, the policies have affected entire communities, leading to social and economic imbalances at the local level. One place where the restrictions have had an outsized impact is Shughnan district in Badakhshan province in the northeastern Amu River valley, bordering Tajikistan, where teachers account for a sizeable portion of the local workforce. In this district, the IEA’s policies are proving disastrous for the local population.
AAN has been listening to a number of female teachers from Shughnan and neighbouring districts, all increasingly depressed by the situation, concerned about losing their profession, the meaning attached to it and the status it affords them.[2] They are distressed by the deterioration of their household economies and their social standing as women in their communities.
Shughnan: a remote corner of Afghanistan
As a hadith of the Prophet goes, one should seek knowledge, even if it means going as far as China.[3] To find quite a deal of knowledge in Afghanistan, however, it suffices to stop shortly before the Chinese border. Travelling across Badakhshan province all the way up one of the branches of the ancient Silk Road, one reaches a remote mountain region, turned by modern boundaries into a cul-de-sac where only a few types of trade thrive, and those largely illegal ones. Shughnan is one of the so-called Pamir[4] districts – high-altitude areas in the northeastern-most corner of Afghanistan, largely inhabited by speakers of Eastern Iranian languages (the Pamiri languages, such as Shughni, Zibaki and Wakhi), who are followers of the Ismaili branch of Shia Islam.[5] Subjected in past decades to isolation, and marginalisation from the centres of Afghan politics and economy, the inhabitants of these districts have occasionally experienced discrimination and exploitation at the hands of political and military actors – typically belonging to the Sunni majority of central Badakhshan – who more often than not have enjoyed hegemony and control over the Ismaili areas. The Ismaili inhabitants, given their condition of minority and vulnerability, have also proven to be a peaceful and law-abiding community, keen on cooperating and supporting a central government able to bring a degree of security and order. Moreover, despite their remote location and poverty, the residents of these districts have consistently displayed satisfactory social indicators, at least with respect to educational standards, particularly when it comes to gender equality in education.
View on Shughnan from the Afghan side of the Panj, with Tajikistan in the background. Photo by Fabrizio Foschini, 2009
Shughnan district represents the foremost example of this, standing out among the other Pamir districts for its early and remarkable achievements in education. Shughnan shares a common history with neighbouring border districts such as Ishkashim and Wakhan: once ruled by an independent lineage of rulers who controlled the territory on both banks of the Panj river[6] these districts were integrated into Afghanistan only at the end of the 19th century during the reign of Amir Abdul Rahman Khan (r 1880-1901). Shortly afterwards, in 1895, a boundary commission set the river’s course as the border between Afghanistan and Russia (now Tajikistan). It was a most unsatisfactory choice, given that the riverbanks in this deep-cut and high-elevation valley represented the only suitable areas for human settlements; the new border split communities and separated many farmers from their fields. Shughnan, in particular, which until then had been the most prominent of the Ismaili principalities, lost much of its agricultural land, which was located on the right bank of the river. Bereft of agricultural resources other than its famed mulberry orchards, the population was unable to support itself. The area went through hard times, including an armed rebellion in 1925 against the oppressive rule and heavy taxation of government officials.
Living to teach and teaching to live
A turning point came only a couple of decades later, when, likely through the good offices of a Shughni (his name lost to time), who had been brought to Kabul in his youth as a ghulam bacha (a court page raised to serve the Afghan kingdom as a loyal official outside the system of tribal alliances) and who had not forgotten the plight of his home district, a high school was built in Shughnan. It was inaugurated in 1939-40. Lycee Rahmat was a unique institution in such a remote district at a time when high schools could only be found in provincial capitals or large cities. It created opportunities for locals to access higher education and pursue a career in teaching, as an alternative form of livelihood to the limited farming still possible. In the following decades, the Afghan educational system slowly expanded to rural areas throughout the country and the district of Shughnan became a rich source of teachers not only for Badakhshan but also for provinces further afield. As one of the teachers interviewed recalled, in the absence of other local commodities, education became an exportable resource for the people of Shughnan:
There’s very little agricultural land in Shughnan district, but the area is very populated. Local people have no other income. For this reason, if more than one person in a family is literate and educated, they will find a job outside the area, in Afghanistan’s other districts and cities. The ability to work anywhere means they can contribute to the family’s income.
This trend did not stop during the decades of war that hit the country, starting in 1978. Shughnan remained firmly under Kabul’s control almost until the collapse of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) government in 1992. Its schools remained open even during the civil war that followed (1992-2001), between mujahedin factions and then between the Taleban and the government led by Burhanuddin Rabbani. It was actually in the 1990s that, despite the dire lack of funding, the district saw the inauguration of a teacher training centre, the only one in the province outside Faizabad, officially sanctioning its role as a provider of teachers for the broader northeast of Afghanistan, which, back then, was under the control of Rabbani’s government (see AAN reporting here).
The establishment of the Agha Khan Development Network (AKDN) operations in Badakhshan in the late 1990s and the strengthening of the ties between the locals and international Ismaili communities and institutions, with their strong emphasis on the importance of learning, certainly favoured the continuation of what had already become a local tradition and export commodity for Shughnan. Despite the increase in the number of teacher training centres and prospective teachers across the province and the rest of Afghanistan in the years after 2001, Shughni teachers kept their primacy and benefited from some economic and social improvements in their positions thanks to the financial support offered by the international community. Indeed, many interviewees told AAN that if previously, most Shughni families already had a member working as a teacher under the Republic, the ratio increased, with some households counting as many as three or even five.
A former superintendent at the Directorate of Education in Shughnan district estimated the number of Shughnis employed as teachers at the fall of the Republic to have been around 2,500, of whom 1,800 were employed outside the district, while other interviewees claimed the number of teachers was actually higher. Whatever the true figure, it is impressive when you consider the district’s population stands just over 30,000. While many teachers are still working in districts across Badakhshan province, the former superintendent said that for decades, Shughni teachers have been sent to as many as 21 provinces. If their destinations have mostly been majority Dari-speaking provinces, such as relatively close-by Takhar and Kunduz, finding work could still lead them, in some cases, even to the opposite corner of the country. Soraya, one of the women teachers interviewed, confirmed that this is still very much the case today: “They [teachers from Shughnan] travel to all districts of Badakhshan and even to Herat and Farah provinces, which are far from Badakhshan.”
With the bad state of road infrastructure, compounded more often than not, for many decades, by security problems, travelling could take days, if not weeks. The roads have not improved much since the 1950s. Before the IEA’s new interest in improving connections to China through the Wakhan corridor (read Khaama Press here), hardly any road building had taken place in the Pamir region. Even now, although roads leading to Ishkashim and Wakhan have been improved, Shughnan remains one of the most inaccessible districts in Afghanistan, and during the long winter months, travel is only possible on foot or by horse.
Most teachers return to Shughnan at the end of every school term to spend the holidays with their families, although others, said Soraya, travel to their school at the start of the school year in the month of Hamal, which starts on 21 March, and return home in the month of Qaws, which starts on 21 November. “That means they come home [only] after nine months – although some take their families with them.” Indeed, some teachers have eventually settled in their places of work and bring their families along.
In 2009, a Shughni teacher employed in Faizabad told the author how he would live almost ten months a year in a rented room with other colleagues in the provincial capital and undertake adventurous travel, partly by car and partly on foot (one week each way) to return to Shughnan for the long winter break. Things were only slightly easier during the two-week summer break, when the seasonal opening of a high mountain pass over the Shiwa Plateau, reduced the trip to two days only.
A group of travelers en route from Shughnan to Ishkashim tries in vain to clear the way for a vehicle at the end of winter. Photo by Fabrizio Foschini, 2009
This lifestyle is more typical for Shughni men. The mobility of Afghan women has always been hampered by higher hurdles. Even so, female teachers from this district have also travelled for work. Indeed, another teacher interviewed estimated that in recent times, the number of Shughni women teachers employed outside the district was nearly three times more than those teaching in the district itself. In other words, some 900 female Shughni teachers had been (or are currently) working away from home, especially in districts in Badakhshan, where Shughni women traditionally accounted for a large share of the female teachers in Faizabad, as well as elsewhere in the province (see AAN’s 2012 report on education in Badakhshan here).
The fact that many male teachers take up positions in faraway places has further enhanced the central economic and social role of women teachers in Shughnan, as they came to make up roughly half of the local teachers, and are often the main breadwinners in their families. Moreover, teaching is a profession that commands much respect in the area. Despite the insufficient salaries teachers have received for most of Afghanistan’s recent history (see AAN’s 2015 report detailing the problems in contract and salary conditions of teachers here), households in Shughnan that claim teachers among their members have generally fared better economically than those who are solely farmers. Over the decades, this, coupled with other cultural, religious and political traits of the local Ismaili population, gave many Shughni female teachers a prominent role in local society.
Multiplying the effects of education
“If you teach a man,” said one of the interviewees, “you teach one person, but if you teach a woman, you educate three people.” By quoting this local saying she went on to explain how an educated woman, necessarily, brings about a change inside her family, as the benefits of her education are amplified. The importance attached to education and the respect afforded to educators was quite apparent in the words of many of the teachers we interviewed. Stressing the suitability of women in taking up the role of educators both at school and at home, female Shughni teachers firmly believe in the power of education to change local society for the better. Female teachers, they believe, should be at the forefront of this reform, as one young teacher, Fawzia, explained:
Education is fundamental to all-round development everywhere, whether in cities or villages. Education in a remote society that does not have any kind of access to life’s conveniences is the best path to progress. For example, we can see the difference between a family whose members are all educated and a family that isn’t educated. We see the impact an educated family can have on themselves and their area. … [T]his itself causes the economy of a place to grow.
For Soraya, who lost her job as a teacher at a girls’ school in Shughnan after the IEA came to power, female teachers can play a transformative role in conservative rural societies:
Had there been no teachers, today’s world, with these levels of progress, would not exist. Therefore, whether in a rural community or a city, the role of the teacher is very important. But when it comes to how effective the role of female teachers can be, this is even more important in the villages and among the rural people because female teachers can help those people and their families understand the need to break some traditions. On top of teaching students in class, female teachers can put an end to some old customs. For example, in some areas, people believe women should not study and work. So, I can say that female teachers are extremely important because they can change people’s old beliefs and ways of thinking.
The head of a secondary school for girls, Sharifa, also currently at home, shared Soraya’s opinion:
Female teachers can be an example for other women [showing them] that they too could win their freedom and rights and defend those rights.In rural communities where more women are teachers, the other women of the village are more aware and have more independent personalities.
Another teacher, Narges, pointed to the dedication and hard work of female teachers compared to many male colleagues and their value as role models for their pupils and their families. Drawing on her experience outside the district, she said: “Families are encouraged to let their daughters go to school [when they see female teachers].” In Shughnan, she added: “it’s been a long time since anyone has kept their girls from going to school.”
Such views cannot be easily dismissed as over-optimistic, wishful thinking, as they might be, if coming from other rural districts of Afghanistan. The female teachers expressing these views draw on their firsthand experience of and participation in a social reform they have seen, against all odds, become a reality in Shughnan over the past 70 years – at least until the most recent and unexpected turn of events.
Part of a decades-long tradition
Most interviewees trace the presence of female teachers in their district back to an earlier era, one where the politicised struggle between so-called ‘western-influenced’ modern education and ‘fundamentalist’ religious schooling was not top of the agenda in Afghanistan, as Farida explained:
We’ve had female teachers in Shughnan for more than sixty years. My father, who is seventy-five years old, says he had a female teacher when he was a pupil at the Bashar primary school, the only school at that time in Shughnan. Her name was Sayed Begum, and she taught Dari.
Another teacher, Narges, also recalled her teacher.
We had female teachers who, twenty years ago, had been teaching for forty years. Then, they retired and some of them have now died. If we count it this way, seventy to eighty years ago, we had women teachers in Shughnan, teaching in schools that were called village schools.
Testimonies indicate that the early presence of female teachers in Shugnan was not due to the influence of the then (slowly) expanding model of modern education from the centre, which was epitomised by the establishment of four lycées, with foreign curricula and often foreign languages as their medium of education, in Kabul between the 1910s and 1920s. Rather, our interviewees suggest that in their district, it was locals who spurred the transformation that sprang from the modest local high school established in 1940. Also, however, self-taught women who overcame barriers and went on to teach in village schools were important, as Soraya recalls:
Shughnan has had female teachers in its schools for more than 60 years. But I should say that the women who were teachers many years ago didn’t have higher education. Some had mostly received their education at home, reading religious texts and poetry books like Hafez-e Shirazi. But in this way, they became literate and could read and write and were appointed as teachers in Shughnan schools due to necessity. Gradually, they gained experience, added to their knowledge, with a lot of effort, and then could keep teaching.
Shughni youth in a hamlet’s mehmankhana (guesthouse). All available surfaces have been used as blackboards for teaching. Photo by Fabrizio Foschini, 2009
Shughnan after 2022: a functioning model of local economy and society endangered
Shughnan has been heavily affected by IEA policies on girls’ education. According to the former superintendent interviewed by AAN, more than half of the over 300 women who, until recently, worked as teachers, have lost their jobs. According to other interviewees, some female teachers have been let go because of cuts to teaching staff. Others, who have been forced out of the classroom by the IEA’s restrictions – they include those who had taught at girls’ high schools – still receive a salary, now reduced to 5,000 afghani (USD 70) a month, from the state. In the words of Sharifa:
Some teachers lost their jobs because the education department in Badakhshan downsized or reduced the tashkil after the Taleban came to power. They don’t get a salary. … [O]thers who still sign their attendance sheet receive a salary of 5,000 afghanis. They don’t receive it on time, only after five or six months. Also, the Taleban get 500 Afs of that as zakat and a teacher only receives 4,500. Their salaries have been reduced to half. In the past, they received 10,000 [USD 140] to 13,000 afghanis [USD 185].
Until recently, the teachers sitting at home received an average of 6,500 Afs (USD 92) , but the salaries of all female public sector employees who have been forced to stay home by the IEA has now been reduced to 5,000 Afs by order of the Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada (read AAN report on the pay cut and its consequences here).[7] All the teachers we spoke to knew about the pay cut, but at the time of the interview, they had not seen its application. At any rate, their monthly salaries, which were hardly sufficient to make a living, were never paid on time, they said, and were usually delayed by four to six months. “They pay our salaries,” said Narges, “with a delay of four months and with the money we finally get, we can hardly cover our expenses for two of the months we’ve waited.”
Interviewees also reported that many Shughni teachers employed outside the district, both those commuting periodically back home and others who had settled elsewhere, had now returned to Shughnan after losing their jobs. Most of them, especially women, who are barred from most other jobs, could not find other ways to earn a living. After spending some months searching for employment, they were in dire circumstances and many had decided to try and leave Afghanistan for good, as Sharifa said:
With the coming of the Taleban government, most of those who were working in the provinces became unemployed and returned to their homes. They either live in a desperate and inadequate situation or have gone to Pakistan or Iran.
Teachers employed in other provinces returning to their homes during the winter break, Roshan area of Shughnan district. Photo by Fabrizio Foschini, 2009
This is not the first time Shughni teachers have faced hardship, privations and bans. After the arrival of the mujahedin in 1991-92, for example, the local situation became complicated. The local Ismailis were accused of having supported the PDPA and some, especially those who had worked for the Kabul government, such as teachers, risked harassment. Initially, restrictions were placed on female teachers, as Sharifa recalled:
When the mujahedin came and Burhanuddin Rabbani became the head of state in Afghanistan, he had a somewhat extreme behaviour. He didn’t let female teachers teach at boys’ schools. But after a while, this problem was solved and everything returned to its place. There was another problem, though. Rabbani and the mujahedin couldn’t govern and the salaries of teachers and employees were cut. Despite that, the teachers, without any salary or benefits, wouldn’t let the schools close. They kept going to school and teaching students.
The comparison ends there. Back then, Shughni teachers eventually saw their positive social role recognised, if not remunerated. The efforts by those teachers to keep education alive across northeastern Afghanistan during the difficult decade before 2001 – with no government support and only limited economic help from NGOs such as the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and AKDN – are still remembered in Shughnan. Several local teachers speaking to the author back in 2009 referred to this time as their ‘jihad’, comparing it to the service to the Afghan nation that mujahedin fighters boasted of. From the more recent interviews, it appears that keeping schools alive during that hard time still provides a source of pride for teachers who lived through it, including Sharifa:
Shughnan was the only district to have already had a teacher training college 35 years ago. Boys and girls studied there in the same class. Many boys’ schools had female teachers, which was rare in other parts of Afghanistan. … We had English language teachers who taught a course in Faizabad and hundreds of boys were studying on that language course whose teachers were Shughni women.
Pride gives way to despair
The pride in their perseverance in the face of difficulties has now given way to despair and a sense of futility. Many interviewees feared the government could progressively and quietly do away with their already heavily reduced salaries. They felt they could do nothing to prevent this, as under the IEA “teachers are not allowed to say anything” and “no one has the right to protest.”
The situation is, of course, especially bad for those women who are no longer allowed to work. Interviewees equated the plight of those who have been compelled to stay at home but still receive a heavily reduced salary to that of those who have completely lost their jobs. “In general,” said Farida, “those who taught the sixth grade and above are at home, which means losing our jobs because we don’t work only for a salary. We enjoyed working and serving the children.
These feelings relate to the loss of purpose and role in life, the fear of even their meagre salaries disappearing and hopelessness about their ability to mobilise to defend their rights. These are largely coincident with those expressed by other female public workers countrywide, as detailed in this recent AAN report. Our interviewees also made clear that the economic and psychological impact of IEA policies were exacting a heavy toll not only on the women but also on their families. One of the teachers, Farida, explained:
It’s a very bad and painful situation for women because we’re not allowed to leave the house and our economy and expenses are now completely dependent on other family members. … Apart from the fact that the behaviour of the families has changed, the women themselves are suffering from mental problems. This situation has affected many women and girls with mental problems. The women are nervous and sometimes fight with other members of the family because they’re mentally unstable.
Her feelings were echoed by Sharifa:
Every family has a different way of life and perspective. However, in general, I can say that when the family’s economy weakens, without doubt, a person’s mental status or psyche is damaged as well. This problem causes one to be in a bad temper and there’ll be conflict at home with one person blaming another.
Another problem is that female teachers and women in general who used to work and were not dependent on their family members, that is, their husbands or fathers or brothers, had their own funds. But now their husbands or brothers have to pay for them, and that’s another, separate issue. In itself, it’s a problem for women, how much money they get from their fathers or brothers or husbands. This is really hard and painful for them.
The possibility that such dramatic changes in the economic situation of women could lead to a loss of social status is real, even in liberal and progressive communities like those of Shughnan. Conflicts and subjugation inside families are likely to increase, especially in poor and resourceless regions like this one. Over the past decades, as the author found on a research trip in 2009, the area has been hit particularly hard by opiate addiction, exacerbated by its position on a trafficked border. Additionally, local women are not accustomed to being dependent on men and are unlikely to easily abide by their new circumstances of seclusion and subjugation. Soraya has seen evidence of this already:
Unfortunately, some female teachers complain about bad behaviour inside the family, especially women whose husbands are drug addicts. Sometimes, their husbands even beat them because they used to give them some money to buy opium, heroin, or whatever they were using. But now, these men can’t work and neither can their wives, so in some families, women are suffering violence.
Interviewees like Narges also mentioned an increase in forced marriages, prompted by the economic woes faced by families: “Some families behave badly. Some have forced girls who were teachers to get married. This will eventually drive the girls crazy.”
Over the past spring, an independent monitoring NGO reported several instances of honour killings or suicide among girls as a result of being pressured by their family to marry in other Pamir districts such as Ishkashim and Wakhan (see also this report by Afghan Witness on the issue). An interviewee, a student of midwifery from Ishkashim, confirmed the link between those deaths and the lack of access to education and prospects:
Today, teachers who’ve studied and gained bachelor’s and master’s degrees have turned to handicraft skills to meet the economic needs of their families. … The situation of women who’ve stopped working and are not active is not so good. It is because, in the past, they used to be self-sufficient and could at least provide for the necessities. Along with men, women were also supporters of their families, financially. Now, the behaviour of some men towards women might have changed because women who used to work outside are now at home. It’s a major challenge for men and women in our society.
She also spoke about the impact on those who should still have been at school:
Nowadays, the closure of schools is a big challenge for girls. They’ve lost their goals and dreams during the three years of school closure. Almost all girls are forced to get married, and where I live, every day, I see an educated girl who’s deprived of schooling being married off. They’re disappointed and worried because it’s the girls who educate a generation, but now they’re deprived of an education. Just where I live, I’ve seen several cases of girls taking their own lives. This is all down to unemployment and the lack of education.
AAN tried to find out about the occurrence of such incidents in Shughnan. Some of the teachers interviewed, such as Sharifa, confirmed that they have also happened there:
The fact that a girl isn’t allowed to study and achieve her ambition is the biggest problem in her life. And when a woman isn’t allowed to work outside the home, all her freedom and rights are taken away from her and she’s imprisoned at home. Then, what is left for her? Right now, I can say that women and girls are literally imprisoned in their homes, where all their rights have been taken away. Some families force their daughters to get married. Unfortunately, we have seen the suicide of several girls who were educated. After the universities were closed, their fathers forced them to marry, but these girls preferred to die.
That it was often highly educated girls who, in the face of their families’ decision to get them married, preferred to take their own lives was also mentioned by Mahram, a resident of Bashar village in Shughnan who said he knew some such cases. He cautioned, though, that it would be difficult to gather information about them, adding that he had heard from a teacher from Roshan (the northern part of Shughnan district) that the local Taleban authorities had held a meeting with the village heads in that area, stressing that such incidents should not be discussed publicly or with the media.
Shughnan district will not lose overnight the cultural and social achievements made over several decades by its own people that have become part of its identity. Nevertheless, the district is undoubtedly facing one of its darkest times, Fawzia said:
Sometimes, because life and economic problems increase, people’s tolerance becomes low and this causes them to behave inappropriately. … [T]he treatment of women in Shughnan district is generally very good, whether they’re responsible for their families or unemployed, as is the case now. Only some narrow-mindedpeople or [those] who aren’t educated have changed their behaviour.The main challenge in our region with school closures is that some girls are forced to get married. That is not because of family pressure, but because of unemployment, economic problems and despair. … [T]here are some people who endure problems and are patient. From my personal point of view, I have a feeling of darkness, that there is no light to see ahead. We don’t feel we see the daylight. We feel it is always night, darkness and nightmares. We feel good dreams never come true.
The unique position of Shughnis, especially its women, as the country’s educators is at risk of vanishing as though it were only a dream. The people of this district, who lost half their land when it became part of Afghanistan and painstakingly worked out a solution to overcome their resulting lack of resources and managed to become part of and contribute to the country’s life in such a vital sector as education, now stand to be left without viable options.
Shughnan had already been put to the test during the civil war of the 1990s, but this is the first time that its hard-gained, fragile economy – one based on learning and teaching – is facing outright obliteration. Such a scenario would not only see the deterioration of the district’s hard-won social development but also lead to significant economic decline. Furthermore, if more Shughni teachers, men and women alike, lose their jobs, livelihoods and social standing, and are forced to migrate in search of a livelihood and a better life, the dramatic loss of human capital and expertise for Afghanistan would be incalculable.
Edited by Roxanna Shapour and Kate Clark
References
References
↑1
In its July 2023 accountability session, the IEA mentioned that 92,000 women were working in the public education sector, although not all were employed as teachers (see this AAN report).
↑2
The names of all interviewees have been changed in order to protect their privacy.
↑3
A famous hadith, though most Islamic scholars consider its chain of transmission to be daʿīf (weak) and thus likely spurious, it has sometimes been considered hasan (fair) on account of its wide circulation. It appears as hadith number 28,697 in Kanz al-Ummal fi Sunan al-Aqwal wa al-Af’al (Treasures of the Doers of Good Deeds) by Ali ibn Abd-al-Malik al-Hindi, 1472 CE – 1567 CE.
↑4
Geographically, the Pamir Mountains are located mostly in Tajikistan on the right side of the Amu River and its headstream the Panj, with the exception of Wakhan district in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province. However, in Afghanistan, Shughnis, Zibakis, Wakhis and other communities in the area are often referred to as Pamiris.
↑5
Ismailis separated from other Shia Muslims as they recognised a different line of imams from among the descendants of caliph Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, as the rightful heirs to religious and political leadership. They live nowadays in many countries across the world; in Afghanistan they inhabit mostly Badakhshan and Baghlan provinces.
↑6
The Panj is the headstream of the Amu Darya which forms Afghanistan’s border with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and partially with Turkmenistan.
↑7
On 2 June 2024, the de facto Directorate General of Administrative Affairs issued a letter purporting to “standardise” the salaries of women civil servants hired by the former administration to 5,000 Afghanis per month, regardless of grade, pegging women’s salaries to the lowest possible level. However, on 7 July 2024, the de facto Ministry of Finance issued a letter clarifying that the order would be applied to women civil servants who did not attend work daily or did not perform their duties according to their job description, and that it did not apply to women who were reporting to work and performing their duties (read this UN report).
Education in Hibernation: The end of a virtuous cycle of literacy and empowerment for women in Shughnan?
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The Taliban have suspended polio vaccination campaigns in Afghanistan, the U.N. said Monday. It’s a devastating setback for polio eradication, since the virus is one of the world’s most infectious and any unvaccinated groups of children where the virus is spreading could undo years of progress.
Afghanistan is one of two countries in which the spread of the potentially fatal, paralyzing disease has never been stopped. The other is Pakistan. It’s likely that the Taliban’s decision will have major repercussions for other countries in the region and beyond.
News of the suspension was relayed to U.N. agencies right before the September immunization campaign was due to start. No reason was given for the suspension, and no one from the Taliban-controlled government was immediately available for comment.
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A top official from the World Health Organization said it was aware of discussions to move away from house-to-house vaccinations and instead have immunizations in places like mosques.
The WHO has confirmed 18 polio cases in Afghanistan this year, all but two in the south of the country. That’s up from six cases in 2023.
“The Global Polio Eradication Initiative is aware of the recent policy discussions on shifting from house-to-house polio vaccination campaigns to site-to-site vaccination in parts of Afghanistan,” said Dr. Hamid Jafari from the WHO. “Partners are in the process of discussing and understanding the scope and impact of any change in current policy.”
Polio campaigns in neighboring Pakistan are regularly marred by violence. Militants target vaccination teams and police assigned to protect them, falsely claiming that the campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
As recently as August, the WHO reported that Afghanistan and Pakistan were continuing to implement an “intensive and synchronized campaign” focusing on improved vaccination coverage in endemic zones and an effective and timely response to detections elsewhere.
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During a June 2024 nationwide campaign, Afghanistan used a house-to-house vaccination strategy for the first time in five years, a tactic that helped to reach the majority of children targeted, the WHO said.
But southern Kandahar province, the base of Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, used site-to-site or mosque-to-mosque vaccination campaigns, which are less effective than going to people’s homes.
Kandahar continues to have a large pool of susceptible children because it is not carrying out house-to-house vaccinations, the WHO said. “The overall women’s inclusion in vaccination campaigns remains around 20% in Afghanistan, leading to inadequate access to all children in some areas,” it said.
Any setback in Afghanistan poses a risk to the program in Pakistan due to high population movement, the WHO warned last month.
Pakistani health official Anwarul Haq said the polio virus would eventually spread and continue affecting children in both countries if vaccination campaigns aren’t run regularly and in a synchronized manner.
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“Afghanistan is the only neighbor from where Afghan people in large numbers come to Pakistan and then go back,” said Haq, the coordinator at the National Emergency Operation Center for Polio Eradication. “People from other neighboring countries, like India and Iran, don’t come to Pakistan in large numbers.”
There needs to be a united effort to eliminate the disease, he told The Associated Press.
The campaign suspension is the latest obstacle in what has become a problematic global effort to stop polio. The initiative, which costs about $1 billion every year, has missed multiple deadlines to wipe out the disease and technical mistakes in the vaccination strategy set by WHO and partners have been costly.
The oral vaccine has also inadvertently seeded outbreaks in dozens of countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East and now accounts for the majority of polio cases worldwide.
This was seen most recently in Gaza, where a baby was partially paralyzed by a mutated strain of polio first seen in the oral vaccine, marking the territory’s first case in more than 25 years.
Associated Press writers Maria Cheng in London and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.
The Taliban have suspended polio vaccination campaigns in Afghanistan, the UN says
The European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) reported on Monday that 45,000 Afghans sought asylum in European countries during the first half of 2024.
The report, published on Monday, September 16, stated that by the end of July, a total of 513,000 people had applied for asylum in European countries.
The EUAA noted that while the total number of asylum applications remained steady compared to the first half of 2023, some regional variations were observed.
During this period, 71,000 Syrians made asylum requests, making them the most significant applicants in Europe.
The report also highlighted that Afghan asylum seekers predominantly applied in countries like Germany, Greece, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, and others.
The number of Afghan asylum applications to European countries decreased by 18% compared to the same period in 2023.
Additionally, the report emphasized that European Union member states accepted approximately 65% of Afghan asylum applications.
However, it is worth noting that many European countries have recently tightened their immigration policies to reduce the number of illegal entries, leading to stricter regulations and fewer approvals for asylum seekers.
The continued migration of Afghans to Europe underscores the ongoing humanitarian crisis, even as the number of asylum applications has declined. The tightening of immigration policies in European countries poses new challenges for Afghan migrants seeking safety and stability in the region.
45,000 Afghans applied for Asylum in Europe in 2024: EUAA
The United Nations says aid workers are still in a “race against time” to remove rubble and rebuild after the devastating earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan last month, killing at least 2,200 people and cutting off remote areas.
The 6.0-magnitude quake on Aug. 31 was shallow, destroying or causing extensive damage to low-rise buildings in the mountainous region. It hit late at night, and homes — mostly made of mud, wood, or rocks — collapsed instantly, becoming death traps.
Satellite data shows that about 40,500 truckloads of debris still needs to be cleared from affected areas in several provinces, the United Nations Development Program said Wednesday. Entire communities have been upended and families are sleeping in the open, it added.
The quake’s epicenter was in remote and rugged Kunar province, challenging rescue and relief efforts by the Taliban government and humanitarian groups. Authorities deployed helicopters or airdropped army commandos to evacuate survivors. Aid workers walked for hours on foot to reach isolated communities.
“This is a race against time,” said Devanand Ramiah, from the UNDP’s Crisis Bureau. “Debris removal and reconstruction operations must start safely and swiftly.”
People’s main demands were the reconstruction of houses and water supplies, according to a spokesman for a Taliban government committee tasked with helping survivors, Zia ur Rahman Speenghar.
People were getting assistance in cash, food, tents, beds, and other necessities, Speenghar said Thursday. Three new roads were under construction in the Dewagal Valley, and roads would be built to areas where there previously were none.
“Various countries and organizations have offered assistance in the construction of houses but that takes time. After the second round of assistance, work will begin on the third round, which is considering what kind of houses can be built here,” the spokesman said.
Afghanistan is facing a “perfect storm” of crises, including natural disasters like the recent earthquake, said Roza Otunbayeva, who leads the U.N. mission to the country.
Afghanistan Peace Campaign
The bridge connecting Afghanistan and Tajikistan in Shughnan district, seen from the Afghan side. Photo by Fabrizio Foschini, 2009
