By Freshta Ghani
Noman is one of the thousands of students who lost their school due to recent floods in Logar province. Now, he and his classmates have no choice but to study under the shade of a tree. He was attending Akbar Khel High School in Azra district. “We have now laid a carpet under the tree, but the ground is damp. We may not be able to study for long,” he tells Zan Times.
Samiullah is a grade 7 student whose school was destroyed due to the flood in Baraki Barak district. “Our school was an hour away on foot, but we used to walk [there] to study. Now that our school has been destroyed, we are very sad,” he explains to Zan Times.
Many lives and financial losses have been caused by floods in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan in recent weeks. Radio Azadi reports that the floods caused at least 40 deaths and 50 injuries in Logar, Nuristan, and Ghazni provinces, with 20 of the dead and 30 of the injured being residents of Logar. Additionally, hundreds of residential houses and public facilities, including schools, have been destroyed.
“The floods in this province resulted in the destruction of 25 schools and 12 religious’ schools, causing $3 million in financial damage,” Shapoor Arab, a spokesman for Taliban’s directorate of education in Logar, tells Zan Times.
He says that the destruction has affected 12,000 students. Even though many students are currently studying in houses, mosques, or under tents or trees, those are temporary solutions. “Students may not be able to continue their studies if [this problem is not solved],” he adds.
Mohammad Hazrat Hanif, the director of Bilal Hanif Private School in Logar, has shared pictures of his destroyed school with Zan Times. “We had more than 500 students in the school, but due to the recent flood, not only the school building was destroyed, but all our teaching materials have been damaged,” he explained to Zan Times.
