Death toll in education center attack in Kabul increases to 24

By Baber Khan Sahel

Kabul, Oct 25 (EFE).- The death toll in suicide attack near an education center in Kabul city increased to 24, officials said on Sunday, as the bereaved families buried their loved ones in cemeteries across the city.

The attack occurred on Saturday in a street leading to the education center in Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood, where the suicide bomber detonated the explosives on being stopped by security guards.

“The number of those martyred increased to 24,” Public Health Ministry spokesperson Akmal Samsor told EFE, adding that dozens others were wounded.

Samsor said seven of the 24 dead were adults and the rest were children. Those injured included women and children.

“All the injured persons are currently in stable condition and are out of danger after receiving medical treatment in hospitals,” Samsor said.

Interior Ministry spokesperson Tariq Arian, in a short statement, confirmed the death toll and underlined that all the casualties were civilians.

Meanwhile, the families of the deceased students laid to rest their loved ones on Sunday morning in different cemeteries, mostly in the west of Kabul, despite plans to bury all the dead together.

“The martyrs of yesterday’s blast were to be buried in same cemetery as the martyrs of a previous attack on an education center but most of families chose to bury their martyrs in their native graveyards,” Sarwar, one of the organizers of the funeral event told EFE.

Different foreign missions on Sunday denounced the attack at the education center, including the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which termed it a war crime.

“UNAMA shares Afghanistan’s deep revulsion at last night’s killing and injuring of more than 60 civilians, many of them youngsters, in a deliberate targeted attack at a Kabul college. A callous and senseless war crime. Our condolences are with the families of the killed & hurt,” it said in a statement.

This was the latest attack in Afghanistan while peace talks between the government and the Taliban are underway in the Qatari capital of Doha to bring an end to nearly two decades of conflict. The Taliban has denied a hand in the attack.

“The blast in Kabul city has nothing to do with the Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate,” Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement on Saturday, using the name they use to refer to themselves.

Abdullah Abdullah, Chairman for the High Council for National Reconciliation in a statement Saturday said he “strongly condemned” this “inhuman attack,”

“By attacking innocent children and students, the terrorists show that they are not bound to any value and religion.”

No group has come forward to claim the attack but it bears the hallmarks of the Islamic State terror organization, which has targeted the Shia Hazara community on several occasions.

The last attack in the western Kabul neighborhood took place in May when a group of terrorists killed 16 people in a maternity ward, including two newborn babies and their mothers.

In the last week, more than 50 civilians have been killed in attacks across Afghanistan, according to data from the interior ministry. EFE

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