Girls' School Bomb Attack in Kabul: Death Toll Rises to 85
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The death toll in a bomb attack targeting schoolgirls in Kabul on Saturday has risen to 85, Danish Hedayat, head of media for the second vice president of Afghanistan, said on Monday.
Another 147 wounded people were wounded in the attack in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood, Hedayat told CNN.
A car bomb was detonated in front of the Sayed Al-Shuhada school, and two more bombs exploded when students rushed out in panic.
The area is home to a large community of Shiites from the Hazara ethnic minority, which has been targeted in the past by the Daesh terrorist group.
There has been no official claim of responsibility yet. The Taliban has denied being behind the Saturday evening attack.
Officials said most of those killed were schoolgirls. Some families were still searching hospitals for their children on Sunday.
"The first blast was powerful and happened so close to the children that some of them could not be found," an Afghan official, requesting anonymity, told Reuters.
On Sunday, civilians and policemen collected books and school bags strewn across a blood-stained road now busy with shoppers ahead of celebrations for Eid al-Fitr next week.
One witness told Reuters all but seven or eight of the victims were schoolgirls going home after finishing their studies.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Saturday blamed the Taliban, but a spokesman for the group denied involvement and condemned any attacks on civilians.
Pope Francis called the attack an "inhuman act" in remarks to pilgrims in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City on Sunday.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the attack and expressed his deepest sympathies to the victims' families and to the Afghan government and people.
Families of the victims blamed the government and Western powers for failing to put an end to violence and the ongoing war.
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.
