It was little more than a shed, with no chairs or desks. But for the 50 young girls who had studied there since April, the two-room school in this pastoral pocket of Logar province was all that stood between a lifetime of ignorance and a glimmer of knowledge. Now the doors have been padlocked, the teacher says he is too scared to return and the former students are back to their customary chores — pumping water at the village well, weeding onion fields and carrying loads of animal fodder on their heads. That may be exactly what the unknown assailants had in mind when they broke into the shed late at night, doused the classrooms with fuel and set them afire, leaving behind leaflets in the Dari language warning that girls should not go to school and that teachers should not teach them. “When I was walking home today, the little girls followed me and asked when they could go back to school. But I am not ready to teach them again because I am afraid for my own safety,” confided Fazel Ahmed, 39, the school’s only teacher. Full Story
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