At least 42 children were injured Monday in an explosion at an educational center in Kabul, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said on Tuesday, calling for “an investigation to determine the circumstances of this incident.”
The explosion occurred Monday evening in the Dasht-e-Barzi neighborhood, an area of Kabul inhabited primarily by Afghanistan’s Hazara and Shia minorities. It has frequently been targeted by Sunni Islamist militants—including the Islamic State—in the past.
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Reuters was unable to independently verify the cause of the explosion. The Kabul police, which is controlled by the Taliban, did not respond to a request for comment.
The hospital in Kabul that admitted at least 35 of the injured students said that all of the patients were between the ages of 10 and 14. “All patients suffered from abrasions, with at least three of them requiring surgical care,” said Dejan Panik, EMERGENCY’s Director in Afghanistan, in a statement.
The location of the explosion led some to condemn it as a targeted attack.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, condemned the incident as an “inhuman attack” in a post on social media.
The European Union Mission to Afghanistan also stated in a social media post that “deliberate attacks on children and educational centers are unacceptable.”
Dast-e-Barchi, a densely populated neighborhood in western Kabul with a large Hazara community, has been repeatedly hit by attacks in recent years, many of which have targeted civilians, students, and members of the Shia minority.
In May 2021, an attack on a school killed at least 85 people and injured hundreds. The overwhelming majority of the victims were girls and women. In September 2022, a suicide bomber targeted a tutoring center during a session to prepare for university entrance exams, killing at least 19 people — many of them also young women and teenage girls.
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Source: CNA
