Afghanistan: Suicide blast kills 19 at education centre in Kabul

A suicide bomb attack at a learning centre in the Afghan capital on Friday killed 19 people as students prepared for university entrance exams police saidThe blast happened in the DashteBarchi neighbourhood of western Kabul a predominantly Shiite Muslim area home to the minority Hazara community the targets of some of Afghanistans most deadly attacksStudents were preparing for an exam when a suicide bomber struck at this educational centre Unfortunately 19 people have been martyred and 27 others wounded Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran saidKaaj Higher Educational Center coaches students mainly adult men and women to prepare for university entrance examsFamilies rushed to area hospitals where ambulances were arriving with victims and lists of those confirmed dead and wounded were posted to the wallsWe didnt find her here a distressed woman looking for her sister at one of the hospitals told AFP She was 19 years oldWe are calling her but shes not respondingAlso Read At least 4 killed 10 wounded after blast near Kabul mosqueAt at least one hospital the Taliban forced families of victims to leave the site fearing that there could be a followup attack on the crowdVideos posted online and photos published by local media showed bloodied victims being carried away from the sceneSecurity teams have reached the site the nature of the attack and the details of the casualties will be released later Abdul Nafy Takor the interior ministrys spokesman earlier tweetedAttacking civilian targets proves the enemys inhuman cruelty and lack of moral standardsThe Talibans return to power in Afghanistan last year brought an end to the twodecade war and a significant reduction in violence but security has begun to deteriorate in recent monthsAfghanistans Shiite Hazaras have faced persecution for decades with the Taliban accused of abuses against the group when they first ruled from 1996 to 2001Such accusations picked up again after they swept back to powerHazaras are also the frequent target of attacks by the Talibans enemy the Islamic State armed group Both consider them hereticsMany attacks have devastated the DashteBarchi neighbourhood with many targeting women children and schoolsLast year before the Taliban returned to power at least 85 people mainly girl students were killed and about 300 wounded when three bombs exploded near their school in the areaNo group claimed responsibility but a year earlier IS claimed a suicide attack on an educational centre in the same neighbourhood that killed 24 including studentsIn May 2020 the group was blamed for a bloody gun attack on a maternity ward of a hospital in DashteBarchi that killed 25 people including new mothersAnd in April this year two deadly bomb blasts at separate education centres in the area killed six people and wounded at least 20 othersEducation is a flashpoint issue in Afghanistan with the Taliban blocking many girls from returning to secondary education while the Islamic State also stands against the education of women and girls