No fewer than fifty-eight persons, including schoolgirls were reported to have been killed and one hundred and fifty others sustained varying degrees of injuries when a bomb exploded in the Afghanistan capital, Kabul.
As stated, the death toll from the explosion outside a school in the country’s capital has been confirmed to have risen to 58 with doctors struggling to provide medical care to at least 150 injured persons.
It was gathered that no fewer than eight of the victims were schoolgirls going home after finishing studies on Saturday night when the bomb went off wrecking havoc in the city’s Shi’ite Muslim neighbourhood of Dasht-e-Barchi.
It was learnt that the community, a religious minority in Afghanistan, has been targeted in the past by Islamic State militants, a Sunni militant group.
Reacting to the development, Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, blamed the attack on Taliban insurgents while a spokesman for the Taliban denied involvement, saying the group condemns any attacks on Afghan civilians.
Meanwhile, controversies have continued trailing the incident with families of the victims blaming the Afghan government and Western powers for failing to put an end to violence and the ongoing war.
Speaking on the incident, a volunteer who has been helping families of the victims at a private hospital, Mohammed Ali, said that several children were buried before dawn on Sunday.
“The entire night we carried bodies of young girls and boys to a graveyard and prayed for everyone wounded in the attack. Why not just kill all of us to put and end to this war?” he said.
The violence comes a week after remaining U.S. and NATO troops began exiting Afghanistan, with a mission to complete the drawdown by September 11, which would mark the end of America’s longest war.
But the foreign troop withdrawal has led a surge in fighting between Afghan security forces and Taliban insurgents with both sides trying to retain control over strategic centres.
Meanwhile, bodies were still being collected from morgues as the first burials were conducted in the west of the city. Some families were still searching for missing relatives on Sunday, gathering outside hospitals to read names posted on the walls, and checking morgues.
