Ayaz Gul
VOA News
December 17, 2019
ISLAMABAD – Two separate bomb explosions in Afghanistan Tuesday killed at least 10 civilians, including children, and injured 18 others.
The violence comes as a new United Nations report says that even by Afghanistan’s grim standards, 2019 has been particularly deadly for children and described the country as “the world’s most lethal war zone.”
Afghan officials said a roadside bomb early Tuesday morning ripped through a civilian vehicle in the southeastern border province of Khost, killing at least ten civilians.
Provincial governor Halim Fidai said that three women and two children were among those killed in the attack in Alisher district.
The governor noted in his Twitter post the victims were on their way to attend a family funeral. He added an investigation was underway into the incident to arrest the perpetrators.
Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi accused the Taliban of planting the bomb. There was no immediate reaction from the insurgent group to the allegations.
Separately, a roadside bomb hit a traffic police vehicle in Mazar-e-Shari, the capital of the northern Balkh province. A spokesman for the provincial police told VOA the blast wounded six traffic police personnel and 12 civilians. There were no claims of responsibility for that attack.
Last Friday, at least ten civilians were killed and six others injured after their minivan struck a landmine allegedly planted by the Taliban to target Afghan security forces in the volatile eastern Ghazni proviince.
Civilians continue to bear the brunt of the 18-year-old conflict in Afghanistan.
The U.N. Children’s Fund, UNICEF, in its report released Monday noted that an average of nine children have been killed or maimed everyday in Afghanistan so far this year.
“The dire predicament of the country as currently the world’s worst killing field, is an acknowledgement of the nearly 6,500 child fatalities and almost 15,000 others injured between 2009 and 2018,” the report noted.
The study lamented that the rate of child casualties has increased by some 11 percent since 2018, blaming a surge in suicide bomb attacks and ground engagement between pro-Afghan government forces and armed opposition groups.
On Tuesday, the U.N. humanitarian agency said that the Afghan conflict has forced more than 414,000 civilians to leave their homes in 2019.
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