Second girls' school poisoning in Afghanistan

CHARIKAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Nearly 50 teenagers were admitted to hospital after a suspected mass poisoning at an Afghan girls' school, a doctor said Monday, in the second such incident in a month.

The headmaster rushed his students out of their classrooms in the northern town of Charikar after they smelt an unusual odor and started feeling nauseous and dizzy, a 17-year-old victim told Reuters from her hospital bed.

"I am pretty sure whoever has done this is against education for girls, but I strongly ask the parents not to be discouraged by such brutal action and send their children to school," said Noor Jahan, a ninth grader at Ura Jalili Girls' High School.

In another room a mother sat beside her unconscious daughter's bed, crying and rubbing the girl's forehead. Around her lay several dazed and pale schoolmates.

"I was in a lesson when suddenly two classmates lost consciousness and collapsed," said Nabila, a 21-year-old in one of the beds. Years of war and unrest mean children often finish school late in Afghanistan.

She said the room had filled with an odor like insecticide at around 11 a.m., and some girls started vomiting.

Police declined to comment.

The incident comes barely two weeks after a mystery poisoning at another girls' school in the same town, which produced similar symptoms, although victims of the first incident said they did not remember an unusual smell.

There have been no clues as to the type of gas used in either case. Blood samples have been sent to the nearby U.S. Bagram airbase but results have not yet come back from the first incident.

Attacks on girls schools have increased in the past year, particularly in the east and south of the country, as a Taliban insurgency has gathered momentum. When the austere Islamists were in power in Kabul, they banned women from work and schools.

Forty-eight students were affected in the latest incident, although none were in critical condition, the head of the hospital told Reuters.

"This is a very serious issue not only for us but for all parents with children in school," said Khalil Farhangi, a doctor.

Dozens of distraught parents gathered at the hospital and tried to push their way through a police cordon to check on their children.

"I want to see my daughter, I don't know what condition she is in now," said vegetable seller Noor Agha. "What will she do about education in the future, when her life is in danger?" the distraught father added.

Last year a group of schoolgirls in Kandahar had acid thrown in their faces by men who objected to them attending school.

(Writing by Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)