Nearly 80 girls have been poisoned at their school and hospitalised in northern Afghanistan, according to local police.
The poisoning happened in the Afghan province of Sar-e-Pol over Saturday and Sunday.
It comes amid the Taliban’s draconian restriction of education for women and girls since seizing power and after a wave of poison attacks on girls’ schools in neighbouring Iran.
Police spokesperson Den Mohammad Nazari told the Reuters news agency: “Some unknown people entered a girls’ ... school in Sancharak District .. and poisoned the classes, when the girls come to classes they got poisoned.”
He did not elaborate on which substance was used or who was thought to be behind the poisonings.
Mr Nazari said the girls had been taken to hospital but were in “good condition." No one had been arrested.
Mohammad Rahmani, who heads the provincial education department, said 60 students were poisoned in Naswan-e-Kabod Aab school and 17 others poisoned in Naswan-e-Faizabad school.
He told the Associated Press: “Both primary schools are near to each other and were targeted one after the other. We shifted the students to hospital and now they are all fine.”
In neighbouring Iran, poisoning incidents at girls’ schools have targeted an estimated 13,000 mostly female students since November.
But the attack in Afghanistan is thought to be the first of its kind since the Taliban took power in 2021 and curtailed the rights and freedoms of Afghan women and girls.
The Taliban administration has prevented most female students from beyond the age of 12 from attending high school and university, sparking international condemnation.
