Teen girls burned with acid in Kandahar

Canwest News Service - November 12, 2008

by Ethan Baron | Canwest News Service

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Two schoolgirls are in hospital with serious facial burns as doctors work to save their sight, after men on motorcycles sprayed acid in the faces of six teenage girls walking to school Wednesday morning.
"They stopped their motorbikes and took some kind of acid from their pockets," said Atifa, 16, a grade 8 student, from her bed in Kandahar's Mirwais Hospital. "They sprayed it in our faces."
The four other schoolgirls received less serious burns on their faces, and were treated and released from the hospital after the 8:30 a.m. local time attack on the western outskirts of Kandahar City.
Mirwais hospital director Sharifa Sadique said the attack threw medical staff into "a panic situation." No previous acid attacks on girls had occurred in the city, Sadique said.
"The two girls' situation is worse, because we fear for their eyes," Sadique said.
Atifa said she will not return to school once she recovers unless the security situation improves.
The other seriously burned girl was unable to speak.
"You see the situation, it's very bad," said her mother Malina, crying. "It's a very painful and terrible situation."
She will not allow her daughter to continue going to school, she said.
A family member of one of the burned schools said there had been no warnings to stop sending their daughters to school.
The Taliban have targeted schoolgirls.
Also Wednesday morning, a car bomb exploded near the Provincial Council Compound in Kandahar City, killing six people and wounding at least 40. Most are believed to be civilians.
With files from Reuters

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