Students protest in Kabul

Press, 24 May 1980, Page 9

Students protest in Kabul

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi Afglwn schoolgirls and boys have returned to the streets of Kabul in the last few days in anti-Soviet demonstrations marked by bursts of gunfire, a traveller from Afghanistan said yesterday. About 12 people were believed killed and several injured in clashes on Tuesday and Wednesday involving young demonstrators, the police, ruling Parcham Party vigilantes and Soviet and Afghan troops, he said. Some of the anti-Soviet protesters were armed, he said. This was in contrast to the two-week disturbance at the end of April, in which an Afghan source said more than 150 unarmed school-; boys and girls were shot; dead. ' The incomplete report: from Kabul did not indicate; if the demonstrations continued yesterday. Leaflets issued by rebels resisting Soviet occupation had called for demonstrations starting last week-end in protest against the earlier .killings and at the arrests of nearly

5000 young people, Afghan sources reported.

According to the Afghan rebel group Hezbe Island Afghanistan, hundreds of students gathered in front of Kabul University and stoned passing vehicles, disrupting traffic for several hours on Tuesday. Students in Kabul were reported to be boycotting their classes.

Other exchanges of gunfire were heard the past few days in the outskirts of Kabul and a hugh column of smoke rose on Tuesday over the northern suburb of Khai-ir-Khana, which is near three camps set up for the Russ : an troops that started entering Afghanistan last] December, the traveller said. Residents saw two burned-; out .Soviet fuel-tank trucks' and rumours spread that they had been ambushed by : rebels, he said.