Zabul-School and Bullies Gone Wrong

We also went where they are building a dormitory for a boy’s school that is meant to bring boy’s in from the isolated districts since when they attend school there, the families are often intimidated. Here in Zabul schools are closing left, right, and center. The Taliban are going to families to harass them into keeping their kids at home, and when that hasn’t worked, in one district they went and cut the ears off of all the teachers that refused to close the school, and told them they would die if they went back to work. This is the stuff that makes me furious…and glad when the military drags one of them out or I read of an attack on a compound. I’m usually one to side with the underdog, but how could you not want to take an aggressive posture to such nonsense. This is just a small piece of what is basically systematized bullying with guns. They are setting up mines to blow when the Afghan National Police drive by or the Afghan National Army do to keep them from patrolling and reaching their safe-havens. Villagers that are hungry have refused taking humanitarian assistance from the US and UNAMA during the winter because they fear that the Taliban will kill them as soon as they return.

Peace...