Afghanistan: Sangin residents say a generation deprived of education due to wars over past two decades

TOLO News is an Afghan news channel broadcast from Kabul.

Residents said the Taliban needs to provide access to education to the district's children, in addition to building schools.

District officials in Sangin said they have begun efforts aimed at rebuilding more than 30 schools in the district.

Sangin is one of the districts of Helmand province that has been deprived of any progress or reconstruction for years, according to residents. Lack of access to education is one of the issues that residents of the district complain about, as per TOLO News.

A number of residents of the district say that because of the wars over the past two decades, a generation has been deprived of education and that all children have grown up without learning.

Ghulam Haidar, a Sangin resident, said: "I have six children; they can't read or write. It was a tradition that we were home one night and during the day we went to the mountains because of the war. We spent one month in one place and the next month in another place."

"Except for the things that they learned from their parents and religious scholars, they remain unenlightened," said Faiz Mohammad, another Sangin resident.

The residents said by the end of the war, the Taliban has to restore education for children in the district, in addition to building schools.

"The children are away from schools and not one of them can write their names," said Aminullah, another resident.

Esmatullah, another resident, said, "We lived in the fields for a long time. Neither we nor our children have been educated. We want to make schools active for us so that we can study."

Local officials in Helmand said they will begin efforts at rebuilding 36 schools that have been destroyed by clashes in the Sangin district of Helmand province.

Helmand education director, Mohammad Ewaz Ansari, said: "We plan to renovate 36 schools with UNICEF funding. In addition to this, the IRC has plans to repair some schools for us."

Sangin district of Helmand was an active war zone in the past two decades, and public facilities were destroyed including many schools.

Recently, the Taliban-appointed political deputy of the foreign ministry of Afghanistan Sher Mohammad Abad Stanekzai said the country cannot develop without education, Khaama Press reported.

Stanekzai, while speaking at an event in Kabul, asked the higher education and education ministries to pay serious attention to the principle and create the necessary facilities in the education sector.

Stanikzai said, "No country can develop without education, and the Islamic Emirate will open it for its citizens. The reopening of a way to education is also Jihad, and it should be done."He emphasized that Afghanistan had fallen behind other countries in the region due to the restrictions on education. Now that a safe environment has been established, the Taliban and international organizations need to pay more attention to the education sector", according to Khaama Press. (ANI)