Chinese FM Meets With Taliban Leaders On First Visit To Kabul Since Militant Group Seized Power

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Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (L) and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pose for a photo during their meeting in Tianjin on July 28, 2021.

By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
March 24, 2022

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has met with members of the Taliban-led government in Kabul after arriving on March 24 ahead of a meeting of Afghanistan’s neighbors next week that will be hosted by Beijing.

China has not recognized the Afghan government that formed after the Taliban took power in August last year following a blitz offensive across Afghanistan amid the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces.

But Beijing kept its embassy open during the hectic evacuation of foreign forces and diplomats from Kabul last year.

China hopes Afghanistan will fulfill its commitment of not allowing any external forces to use its territory as a tool to oppose neighbors or harm the security of other nations, Wang Yi said in a statement published by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

The statement also said that China welcomes Afghanistan’s participation in the Belt and Road Initiative, a global plan to insert China further into infrastructure and investment projects around the world and is willing to push for extending the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan.

Wang made the comments in a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar, the statement said.

Wang met earlier with Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.

Wang arrived in Kabul from Islamabad where he attended a two-day meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. From Afghanistan he traveled on to Inida, making the highest-level visit by a Chinese official to the country since border clashes soured relations two years ago, local media said.

Afghanistan has been grappling with financial and humanitarian crises. The United Nations and other aid agencies say more than half of the country’s 38 million people are facing hunger.

China shares only a 76-kilometer border with Afghanistan, but maintaining stability after decades of war in the neighboring country is Beijing’s main consideration.

China is also seeking to secure its borders and strategic infrastructure investments in Pakistan, home to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

The Taliban has also repeatedly expressed hopes of developing good relations with China, which it sees as a crucial source of investment and economic support.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

Copyright (c) 2022. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

Taliban Cabinet: Appoints Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar as Prime Minister

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Baradar

8am: Taliban cabinet has appointed Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar as Prime Minister. Baradar will replace Mullah Hassan Akhund. The decision is made during the Taliban’s senior cabinet meeting held in Kandahar. In addition, Sirajuddin Haqqani who currently leads the Ministry of Interior will be the Deputy Prime Minister in addition to his current post. Click here to read more (external link).

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Taliban Renege on Promise To Allow All Afghan Girls Back in School

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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
March 23, 2022

ISLAMABAD — The Taliban reopened schools in Afghanistan after the winter break Wednesday but continued a ban on grade seven to 12 girls, saying they still need time to draw up a plan for them in line with Islamic law or Sharia.

The move swiftly drew domestic and international criticism of the Islamist group for backtracking on its commitment that all girls around the country would be allowed to return to school March 23, which also marks the start of the school year for most Afghan provinces.

“We inform all girls’ high schools and those schools that are having female students above class six that they are off until the next directive,” said the Taliban notice.

Wednesday’s last minute amendment to the earlier Taliban directive that schools around the country would open for all students left many girls in tears in the capital, Kabul, who had arrived at campuses in excitement in the morning but were told to go back home.

“I was in tears of joy until yesterday after hearing the news about the reopening of my school. But today I want to cry because I was unable to enter the school,” a girl told the Afghan TOLO news channel before bursting into tears.

“We all got disappointed, and we all became totally hopeless when the principal told us, she was also crying,” the Reuters news agency quoted another student, not named for security reasons.

“I’m deeply troubled by multiple reports that the Taliban are not allowing girls above grade 6 to return to school,” tweeted Ian McCary, the acting U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, who is working in Qatar.

“This is very disappointing & contradicts many Taliban assurances & statements. All Afghan youth deserve to be educated,” McCary said.

Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban’s permanent ambassador-designate to the United Nations, insisted the suspension of girls’ education was a temporary step.

“There is no issue of banning girls from schools; it is only a technical issue of deciding on form of school uniform for girls. This is the cause of postponement,” Shaheen said in a statement he sent to reporters. “We hope the uniform issue is resolved and finalized as soon as possible,” he added.

Aziz Ahmad Rayan, the spokesman for the Education Ministry in Kabul, told VOA the overnight orders to stop girls from attending school had come from the Taliban leadership and the ministry was bound to enforce them.

“Tears of every Afghan sister are extremely valuable for us. But as employees of the Islamic Emirate we have no role in the decision-making process,” Rayan said, using the official name of the Taliban government.

The Islamist group barred high school girls from returning to the classroom after taking control of Afghanistan seven months ago. Taliban officials have repeatedly cited financial constraints and a lack of arrangements in schools for female students in accordance with Sharia.

When they were previously in power in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban had banned all women from leaving home unless accompanied by a close male relative and girls from receiving an education.

The group has pledged in recent meetings and speeches at international platforms it would govern the country differently this time. But the imposition of multiple restrictions on Afghan women has raised questions and concerns about human rights abuses.

“This morning’s announcement that teenage girls across the country will not be able to attend secondary education until further notice casts a dark shadow on the start of the school year in Afghanistan,” said Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) charity.

“Our teams on the ground tell us that in places where we work, girls were excited to return to school after eight months of closure, but arrived this morning only to be then turned away,” Egeland lamented.

“Limiting girls’ schooling to primary education will devastate their future and the future of Afghanistan.”

Girls’ secondary schools have been mostly closed in Afghanistan for the past eight months, except in 6 of 34 provinces, according to the NRC.

Qualified female teachers are scarce in remote areas, largely due to a lack of girls’ enrollment past primary grades, which further limits access for girls, making the issue a cyclical one, the charity says.

UNICEF estimates that four million children in Afghanistan are out of school, of which 60% are girls.

“Our team has conveyed our deep concern to the Taliban and has underlined the urgency of opening schools for all children,” George Laryea-Adjei, UNICEF regional director, said in a statement.

“We want to see all children in Afghanistan in school, learning the skills they need for their futures.”

The global community has made access to education and work for Afghan women a key demand for any future recognition of the male-only Taliban government and restoring non-humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, where millions face hunger and poverty.

“Taliban had seven months to figure this out. If they were not able to organize in seven months, we can conclude that they are not capable of opening girls schools,” said analyst Tarek Farhadi, a former Afghan government official.

“It amounts to taking girls hostage in Afghanistan. Afghans and the world will not let them do so,” lamented Farhadi.

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Measles Outbreak Adds To Afghanistan’s Humanitarian Crisis

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By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
March 22, 2022

Afghanistan is already mired in the world’s worst humanitarian disaster marked by widespread hunger, economic collapse, and the mass displacement of people. Now an extremely contagious viral disease — measles — is thriving in the country’s weakened state.

Those issues have caused “irreparable damage” to Afghan children, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and are compounding efforts to contain a major measles outbreak that began in early 2021.

“The rise in measles cases in Afghanistan is especially concerning because of the extremely high levels of malnutrition,” WHO representative Luo Dapeng said this month during a visit to the central province of Wardak. “Malnutrition weakens immunity, making people more vulnerable to illness and death from diseases like measles — especially children.”

In December, WHO launched a measles vaccination campaign to fight the ongoing outbreak. During a week long immunization drive from March 12 to 17, WHO said it planned to vaccinate more than 1.2 million children under the age of five across 24 Afghan provinces.

A two-dose vaccination rate of 95 percent is recommended to ensure immunity and lower the risk of transmission to neighboring states such as Iran and Pakistan that host large numbers of Afghan refugees.

Measles cases have skyrocketed over the past year. From January 2021 to March 2022, there were over 48,000 cases and 250 deaths, according to the WHO. In 2022 alone, there have been over 18,000 cases and 142 children have died of measles in the country.

The resurgence of measles, a viral respiratory disease, has taken a terrible toll on children across Afghanistan.

The biggest hot spot, according to a map compiled by the WHO, is in the eastern province of Paktia, bordering Pakistan. To the north, the provinces of Balkh — bordering Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan — and Kunduz — bordering Tajikistan — are close behind. To the west bordering Iran, high infection rates have been recorded in the provinces of Farah and Herat, as well as in Badghis, which borders Turkmenistan.

Doctors Without Borders has expressed particular concern about the rising case numbers in Herat, Kunduz, and the southern province of Helmand, where it said that from December to February an average of 150 children were being hospitalized every week with measles.

Homeira, a 26-year-old mother from the central Ghor Province, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi that she struggled to receive needed treatment for her 6-month-old son even when he exhibited tell-tale signs of measles, including white lesions in the mouth known as Koplik’s spots and a visible rash.

“He had diarrhea and was vomiting,” she said. “Later we went to bed, but he did not recover. The doctors prescribed medicine and I gave it to him, but he was still vomiting.”

Doctors at Ghor’s provincial hospital said that poor-quality vaccines and medicines, as well as people’s lack of awareness about the disease, contributed to the death toll.

Hospital director Abdul Ahmad Nuri said that thousands of children had been hospitalized even before the WHO vaccination campaign, the second following a nationwide effort in December, began this month. The outbreak, Nuri said, had left the hospital scrambling to find beds for measles patients.

In Badghis Province, 340 children were hospitalized with measles in the first two months of this year, a number that Safiullah Khadem, the deputy director of the Badghis Department of Public Health, told Radio Azadi, compared to the total for all of 2021.

In the province, parents have complained of inadequate care, a complaint that has become frequent as health care suffered from a dramatic drop in international aid since the Taliban regained power in August.

The new Taliban leadership has not been recognized by the international community and is restricted by international sanctions.

Zarmina, a 35-year-old mother of three, said she rushed all of her children to the provincial hospital and was told she would have to provide her own vaccines and syringes.

“They took us to the emergency section of the hospital and told us to get a syringe,” she said this month. “They administered one shot themselves and we had to buy the rest of the medication from the market.”

The lack of trust in the health-care system is a hurdle that the WHO is acutely aware of and is trying to overcome by convincing the population of the need for the entire vaccination course.

“I appeal to every parent to bring your kids for vaccination and give them the best gift of being protected from life-threatening but preventable disease,” the organization’s Dapeng said.

Copyright (c) 2022. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

Mazar-e-Sharif Residents Do Not Celebrate Nowruz for the First Time in Decades, As the Taliban Cancel Public Holiday

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Mazar-e Sharif

8am: The mosque attributed to Imam Ali in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif used to host thousands of visitors from across the country each year during Nowruz festival. This year, however, no official ceremony took place in the city, as the Taliban opposed the New Year celebration, even calling the festival as not in line with Islamic law. Click here to read more (external link).

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