By Radio Free Afghanistan
May 22, 2021
The death toll from bombings outside a high school in the Afghan capital has risen to 100 dead and 160 wounded, says the office of Sarwar Danish, Afghanistan’s second vice president.
Three powerful bombs detonated outside the Sayed Ul-Shuhada high school in Kabul on May 8 as students, many of them teenage girls, were leaving class.
The attack occurred in Dasht-e-Barchi, a predominately Shi’ite enclave in Kabul that is home to the Hazara minority.
Islamic State (IS) and Taliban militants — Sunni extremist groups that consider Shi’a apostates — have been blamed for devastating attacks that have killed hundreds of Hazara in the area in recent years.
Danish’s office said on May 21 that many of the hundreds of survivors were severely wounded by the blasts.
It warned that the death toll could rise further.
The attack, which was not claimed by any group, was one of the deadliest since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 toppled the Taliban from power.
Violence has soared in Afghanistan since the start of the international troop withdrawal on May 1, with the Taliban seizing districts and overrunning government military bases in rural areas.
There has also been a sharp uptick in deadly suicide bombings in urban areas that have been blamed on the Taliban.