103 schools shut in central Afghanistan due to Taliban threats

Pupils at 103 schools in Afghanistan's central province of Logar could not go to school on Saturday as education facilities were closed due to Taliban threats, an official said.Officials shuttered more than 60 schools in the centre of the provincial capital Pol-e Alam due to threats from the insurgent group, said Abdul Wakil Kaliwal, head of Logar's Education Department.Around 40 others remained shut in the Taliban-controlled district of Mohamad Agha, he added.The closures have deprived some 60,000 students of education in the province.Taliban militants have started to threaten teachers in a bid to make them stay at home after suffering heavy casualties in recent military operations in Logar, according to officials.Meanwhile, in the southern province of Helmand, 123 schools have been shut for 10 years due to ongoing violence, affecting more than 600,000 students, an official said.Corruption, the ongoing insurgency and the reluctance of local residents are the main reasons behind school closures in the embattled province, said Dawood Safari, head of education for Helmand.Since May, the Taliban have closed some 30 schools in Takhar province in the country's north, depriving some 11,000 students of education.At least 3.7 million children in Afghanistan aged 7 to 17 are not able to go to school, the United Nation's Children's Emergency Fund (Unicef) said in a report published in May.