EU condemns reported Taliban move to suspend medical education for women and girls

The European Union on Wednesday condemned the Taliban for violating human rights and women's access to education after media reports that the Taliban's leader has ordered private and public institutions to stop providing medical courses for women and girls in Afghanistan.

The Taliban have neither confirmed the order nor responded to the reports. The Public Health Ministry spokesman was unavailable for comment.

In September 2021, a month after they returned to power, the Taliban stopped schooling for girls after grade six. They banned women from university in December 2022.

Medical education, like nursing and midwifery, was one of the few ways they could continue their learning in classrooms.

The BBC and others reported that five institutions across Afghanistan said the Taliban had instructed them to close until further notice, and women training as midwives and nurses were ordered not to return to classes Wednesday.

The EU said the Taliban’s latest reported decision represented another appalling violation of fundamental human rights and an unjustifiable attack on women’s access to education in Afghanistan.

“The European Union expresses its strong concerns over this decision and its far-reaching implication, including the deepening of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and the exacerbation of the suffering of its people,” the statement said.

It urged the Taliban to reverse the policy.

A spokesperson for the World Health Organization said the U.N. in Afghanistan was working to verify the claims with relevant officials.

“This development raises serious concerns about the sustainability and appeal of formal education for female health workers,” said WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris. “Such measures could have far-reaching implications for the future availability of qualified female health professionals and the continuity of health service delivery in the country.”

A starker warning came from a senior health official in Afghanistan. He did not give his name for fear of reprisals from the Taliban.

He said that Afghanistan would face major challenges beyond the control of the government if the suspension became permanent.

“If women are not trained as staff, the mortality rate of mothers and children will increase in remote areas," he said. "There will not be enough staff to provide services to female patients. Those NGOs that provide services in distant provinces and districts are still facing a shortage of doctors, midwives, nurses and other female staff.”

A 22-year-old midwifery student learned Wednesday that the institute was stopping classes for her and her friends. She had already switched from a law degree after the Taliban stopped university for women and expressed her shock and disbelief at the latest decision.

“After an hour, when I calmed down a little, I cried a lot because we had this one way (to study) and it is also closed,” she said. “It’s a difficult situation to have so many dreams in the field of education. But, in a second, all the dreams are crushed. This is the second time I have faced such a situation.”

Another young woman said she had set out to be a pilot in the armed forces, an ambition that ended after the Taliban's return to power.

So she started studying midwifery because of women's health issues, especially Afghanistan's high maternal mortality rates. She wanted to work in a hospital. On Wednesday, before the first exam of the semester, the institute told female students they could not return.

“It was the most difficult moment of my life when I heard this. It still is. They killed my hopes.”

Both women spoke anonymously for fear of reprisal. Public dissent against Taliban rule is rare.

FILE -Afghan girls hold illegal protest to demand the right to education in a private home in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

FILE -FILE - Afghan school girls attend their classroom on the first day of the new school year, in Kabul, Saturday, March 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File, File)

FILE -An Afghan woman is checked by a nutritionist at a clinic run by the WFP, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

FILE -Afghan refugees pass by an outdoor girls classroom in Torkham, Afghanistan, Saturday, Nov. 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

Authorities fear a woman in western Pennsylvania who disappeared while looking for her cat may have been swallowed by a sinkhole.

Crews lowered a pole camera with a sensitive listening device into the hole on Tuesday but no sound was detected, while a second camera lowered down showed what could be a shoe. Rescuers worked through the night and on Wednesday.

Police say Elizabeth Pollard's relatives called police at about 1 a.m. Tuesday to say she hadn’t been seen since Monday evening when she went to search for her cat. They found Pollard’s 5-year-old granddaughter in her parked car near the manhole-sized opening.

Here are some things to know about sinkholes:

A sinkhole is an area of ground that has no natural external surface drainage and can form when the ground below the land surface can no longer support the land above, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The land usually stays intact for a period of time until the underground spaces just get too big. If there is not enough support for the land above the spaces, then a sudden, dramatic collapse of the land surface can happen.

Sinkholes are most common in what geologists call karst terrain, which involves types of rock including limestone below the land surface that can naturally be dissolved by groundwater circulating through them. They can also happen due to old underground mines.

The most damage from sinkholes in the U.S. tends to occur in Florida, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Pennsylvania. Florida, for example, is highly susceptible to sinkholes because it sits above limestone.

Sinkholes can range in size from holes that are just a few feet wide to ones that cover a vast area spanning hundreds of acres. Their depth can also vary from just a few inches to more than 100 feet (more than 30 meters). Some are shaped like shallow bowls or saucers, whereas others have vertical walls. Some hold water and form ponds.

In June, a giant sinkhole in southern Illinois swallowed the center of a soccer field built on top of a limestone mine, taking down a large light pole and leaving a gaping chasm where squads of kids often play. No one was hurt.

In 2023, a sinkhole that in 2013 fatally swallowed a man sleeping in his house in suburban Tampa, Florida, reopened for a third time, but it was behind chain-link fencing and caused no harm to people or property. Officials said the sinkhole reopening was not unusual, especially in central Florida with its porous limestone base.

A large sinkhole opened up in 2020 in South Dakota near where a man was mowing his lawn. Testing revealed a large, improperly sealed mine beneath part of the housing subdivision, and a 40-foot-deep (12-meter-deep) pit mine in another corner of the neighborhood, a lawyer for some of the area homeowners said. Since the first giant collapse, more sinkholes have appeared.

A large sinkhole that swallowed oil field equipment and some vehicles in southeastern Texas in 2008 expanded in 2023 when another sinkhole developed and joined the first one.

FILE - TDOT workers assess damage done by a sinkhole on eastbound Interstate 24 near Grundy County Tuesday May 18, 2010 near Chattanooga, Tenn. (Danielle Moore/Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP, File)

FILE - This photo provided by Brunswick County Sheriff's Office shows a police officer checking on a vehicle that fell into a sinkhole on a highway in Brunswick County, N.C., after a storm dropped historic amounts of rain, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (Brunswick County Sheriff's Office via AP, File)

FILE - Officials stand on one edge of a giant sinkhole on the property of the Louisville Zoo, Wednesday, March 6, 2019, in Louisville, Ky. (Jeff Faughender/Courier Journal via AP, File)

FILE - A sinkhole is shown after opening in the road at the intersection of McAlpin Street and McLawren Terrace in The Villages, Florida, on Monday, May 21, 2018. (George Horsford/Daily Sun via AP, File)

FILE - A St. Louis police officer looks over a large hole in 6th Street, Thursday, June 29, 2017, in St. Louis, that swallowed a Toyota Camry between Olive and Locust Streets. (Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP, File)

Rescue workers search through the night in a sinkhole for Elizabeth Pollard, who disappeared while looking for her cat, in Marguerite, Pa., Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)