Some public universities opened in Afghanistan on Wednesday for the first time since the Taliban seized power in August, with a trickle of women attending classes that officials said would be segregated by sex.
Most secondary schools for girls and all public universities were shuttered when the hardline Islamist group stormed back to power, sparking fears women would again be barred from education — as happened during the Taliban’s first rule, from 1996-2001.
“It’s a moment of joy for us that our classes have started,” Zarlashta Haqmal, who studies law and political science at Nangarhar University, told AFP.
“But we are still worried that the Taliban might stop them.”
One analyst said the reopening of universities was a “critical marker” on the Taliban’s road to international recognition.
Officials said universities in Laghman, Nangarhar, Kandahar, Nimroz, Farah and Helmand provinces opened Wednesday.
More were scheduled to resume operations elsewhere in the country later this month.
An AFP correspondent saw one small group of women, wearing the all-covering burqa, enter Laghman University early Wednesday.
The men who attended — ferried to the campus in local taxis and buses — were dressed in traditional tunics known as shalwar kameez.
Attendance was very light and Taliban fighters guarded the entrance, a tripod-mounted machine gun resting on a boom gate.
Most students declined to offer their thoughts on returning to class, with some saying they had been warned by authorities not to speak to the press.
Journalists were prevented from entering the Laghman campus and universities in other provinces.
