Afghan Children, Deprived of School, Tell of Their Deepest Fears<br />The total number — representing roughly one in three school-age Afghan children — is expected to grow this year as violence between Afghan forces<br />and the Taliban intensifies, and Pakistan forces Afghan refugees to return home, according to Save the Children, an advocacy group.<br />I sleep with my five brothers and sisters in one tent, and my father, mother, and two small sisters sleep in the other.<br />Providing drinking water for our home is my responsibility, and I bring water in a wheelbarrow, in these small barrels, two or three times a day.<br />If I don’t go to school, I will become nothing in the future; if I go to school, I will become a doctor.<br />We sell the things we collect during the day for 20 cents, and then I bring the money home and we buy tea, sugar or something else with it.<br />After intense fighting in the district, which is now controlled by the Taliban, his father moved half of the family to Tirin Kot.<br />I studied up to fifth grade in our district, but schools closed a year ago because of fighting, and now the Taliban control our village.
