According to Pakistani officials, unidentified gunmen blew up a government girls’ school in a tribal area of Pakistan’s troubled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Monday, destroying seven rooms of the school, where 255 girls study, with no casualties recorded.
Minister of Education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Faisal Khan Tarakai, stated that the gunmen detonated the government middle school for girls in the North Waziristan tribal area on the border with Afghanistan late Sunday.
Tarakai assured that the school would resume operations soon, emphasizing that “such cowardly acts cannot deter our determination to promote education in the tribal areas. Providing education is the top priority of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.”
The Taliban and its affiliates oppose female education, considering it un-Islamic. In a similar incident in May, unidentified gunmen blew up a private girls’ school in the Tehsil Shewa area of North Waziristan.
These attacks are part of a series of hostilities against girls’ education in the region, increasing the challenges faced by efforts to promote education in the troubled tribal areas.
