24 other people were injured, said the doctor, who works at a hospital in Aybak, the capital of Samangan province. All victims are “children and ordinary people”. The radical Islamic Taliban, however, spoke of ten dead and others injured.
According to the doctor, some of the injured were taken to better-equipped hospitals in Mazar-i-Sharif, around 120 kilometers away. The wounded who remained in Aybak were mainly injured by shrapnel and pressure waves. Some of them had shrapnel in their faces, others had broken hands and legs, the doctor said.
According to the Taliban, the explosion happened during a prayer. A video widely shared on social media after the incident shows fallen ceilings and people walking angrily between several lifeless bodies. The video could not be independently verified. A representative of the regional authority confirmed the explosion, but initially did not provide any information on the number of victims. The Taliban, who often downplay the number of victims, said ten students were killed and “many others” injured.
“Our investigative and security forces are working quickly to identify the perpetrators of this unforgivable crime and to punish them for their actions,” a spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry said on Twitter.
The human rights organization Amnesty International described the explosion as “disturbing”. She was “another reminder to the world that the suffering of the Afghan people is far from over,” Amnesty said on Twitter.
Since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, there have been numerous attacks on civilians in Afghanistan. The jihadist militia Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for most of them. This has been appearing in Afghanistan with attacks since 2015 and is hostile to the Taliban despite its ideological affinity.
At least 54 people were killed in a suicide attack on the women’s section of an education center in Kabul in late September. At least four people died in an explosion at a mosque in Kabul on October 5.
Source: Nachrichten
