The U.N. children’s agency said on Thursday it was following up with Afghanistan’s Islamic Emirate officials over whether international organizations would be excluded from education projects, which could affect hundreds of thousands of students, Reuters reported.

“UNICEF is deeply concerned by reports that over 500,000 children, including over 300,000 girls, could lose out on quality learning through community-based education within a month if international non-governmental organizations working in the field of education are no longer allowed to operate,” said UNICEF’s Afghanistan spokesperson, Samantha Mort.

The agency was seeking clarification, she said.

Spokespeople for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Islamic Emirate that took power in 2021 has closed most secondary schools to girls, stopped female students attending universities and stopped many Afghan women working for aid groups and the United Nations.

However, international organizations, including the U.N., have been heavily involved in education projects, including community-based classes, often held in homes in rural areas.

Two humanitarian aid sources said that in recent days humanitarian agencies had heard that provincial authorities had been directed to stop the involvement of international organizations in education projects.

The Islamic Emirate had not confirmed any orders to aid agencies seeking clarity.

In New York, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: “If this would come to pass, this would be another horrendous step backwards for the people of Afghanistan.”

“We’ve not gotten anything official, anything in writing,” he said, adding that the U.N. message to the Taliban [IEA] administration was that “every person has a right to an education.”

The U.N. estimates that 8.7 million Afghans are in need of humanitarian aid for education this year and it was planning to reach about 3 million people under a humanitarian package for the year, which was revised this week to reflect lower funding.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) is building public trust and inclusivity will come automatically, Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani said during his visit to northern Jawzjan province.

Addressing a gathering, Haqqani said that the “enemies” sought to divide Afghanistan under different names in the past, but now IEA will not allow this to happen.

“The enemies wanted Afghanistan to fall in a conflict, where the North, South, West and East would be divided into different islands, but Alhamdulillah, this is a Muslim nation and a patriotic nation. Alhamdulillah, all the evil circles fled the country. The then rulers had created a misunderstanding and we are removing this misunderstanding. Henceforth, the enemies’ plots will be neutralized and love and trust will increase,” Haqqani said.

Haqqani also emphasized that the Islamic Emirate is committed to the implementation of the general amnesty decree, and no one will be allowed to arbitrarily violate this decree.

“The most important thing is to build trust and bridge the gap. After building trust, inclusivity will come automatically, because the government is a trust, it is not someone’s property. Sometimes it is mine and sometimes it is one of the other brothers. The more proper the keeping, the more will be survival,” Haqqani said.

Meanwhile, Jawzjan Governor Gul Haider Shafaq said that people want an Islamic system in the country, not government posts.

On the other hand, a number of residents of Jawzjan province reiterated their support for the IEA and asked the government to address the people’s problems.

Reports that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) have implemented policies to significantly decrease opium poppy production this year are credible and important, US special envoy Thomas West said.

“Every country in the region and beyond has a shared interest in an Afghanistan free of drugs,” West said in a tweet.

The BBC reported on Tuesday that an investigation by the media outlet has found a marked decrease in poppy cultivation across Afghanistan this year.

The BBC reported that it traveled in Afghanistan – and used satellite analysis – to examine the effects of a decree issued in April 2022 by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada that the cultivation of poppies, from which opium, the key ingredient for the drug heroin can be extracted, was strictly prohibited.

One expert quoted in the report said that poppy cultivation has declined 80 percent this year. Helmand, in particular, has seen 99 percent drop.